Talk:Genetically modified food

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[edit] Top

I met some inconsistance as regard the amount of agri trade between US and EU. Needs to be checked.


please Tarquin, let me time to restore other edits. It is quite wrong that each saving takes 5 mn too


[edit] Trade disputes

I absolutely agree with Graft on his opinion. Whoever created this article should have placed this article somewhere else. The main focus of this article is the reason for GMF. It seriously needs a revamp. ImpalerBugz 08:20, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

This article has way to much about trade disputes and not nearly enough about the history and development of GMOs. For example, not -one- single mention of which crops have been modified, how, or why, and by whom. I think we should just cut out the whole bit about trade disputes, or else drastically reduce it. It should definitely -not- be the main thrust of the article. Graft 02:41 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)

let me put a point there. I wished this article to existe precisely among other things to try to explain the trading issues of gm food,, and what they implied. Then Little Fat Budda tried to redirect it to another article and did not want to give this article a chance. Hence, I, wrote this, and as often, did not finish it. I wanted to update it some time ago, and somehow forgot. If you think the content is not under the right title, please explain why and propose another title. But please, do not remove the content. It took me several hours and I think it is important.
Now, look again carefully about the title. This is not talking of gmo, this is about gm food. I think I tried to indicate where the difference was. There is "already" an article about gmo, which maybe should be updated with all your comments. But here, what is important is not what is produced, it is what is proposed to the final consumer. Hence, it is certainly interesting to indicate which crops are the most transformed, and in which food they are likely to be found, but it is not the place to indicate what a gmo is, who transformed them, how. This belong to the GMO article.
And yes, I agree the article is a work in progress. I suggested to several people to try to give another perspective. I do not see why I should provide all the perspectives myself if no other editor wants to work on it. These trading issues are very important for us europeans, and I think it is for american as well. User:anthere
Hi anthere,
I think the article Genetically modified food should provide substantial information on -genetically modified food-, not on trade disputes surrounding GM food. I agree the trading issues might be very important for you europeans, and maybe even for us americans, but they are not, by far, the only important factor surrounding GM food. As such I think the level of detail in which the trade dispute is covered in is excessive - I'm going to add in some other details I think are relevant, but I think I would prefer if you would cut the EU/US dispute down to several paragraphs... considering there are significant issues in India, Africa, and other parts of the world, if we have so much detail in this article it will become excessive. Graft 02:15 14 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I agree other issues must be raised here, and I don't think I will remove what you put in the article, though I believe some of it rather belong to the GMO article.

However, I strongly disagree with you when you say this article should not provide information on trade disputes. Your opinion is very personal opinion. And this is not the opinion hold by many european at all. I agree there are other disputes in other parts of the world, but I don't see them here right now, and fail to see why I would cut down this article content just for the reason they exist and might be there one day. Right now, they are not. If they are one day, it will be time perhaps to divide this article into pieces. I also suggested above that part of the article could be moved to another article, but then please provide a title. I can't think of any since I believe this information belongs here.

I am a very strong proponent of in-depth articles. I think this is the type of information that requires much reading to be finally grasped. In particular, I think it is an important content for american people to help them understand why Europe and USA are disagreeing on the GMO topic. I believe that with additional work, this is an important ressource for better understanding, and this is the goal of an encyclopedia. If you think it is poorly phrased, please help to explain it better for me.

Last point, since this topic is not an historical topic, the end of it is clearly a work in progress. I don't think it is necessary a huge pb. Similarly, the Irak war articles were very messy during the war. Now that the topic is settled, the articles are more structured.

Anthere

I would have to agree. The trade aspect is a major source of frustration for U.S. farmers who see export markets close to them whether the individual farmer should choose to grow GMO grain or not. A discussion of GM food would be incomplete without it. Kat 21:14 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Well, I wanted essentially to put trade and biosafety issue in this article, since I thought the other aspects could be covered in the genetically modified organism. But looks like my stuff is somewhere else now, and that this article is slowly becoming redundant with the GMO one :-( Feel free to move back some carefully shortened points from the trade war article then. Ant

I don't understand this sentence: The Agriculture Department estimated that 38 percent of the 79 million acres of corn planted in 2003 will be genetically engineered varieties (80% of surface) for soybeans on 73.2 million acres). Is part of it missing? Koyaanis Qatsi 19:36 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I didn't write it but it sounds like it's wrong. 38% of corn acreage sounds right for corn, mostly Bt varieties with some RR and Liberty varieties in there. The soybean figure seems low. I would guess that over 90% of the acreage will be RR beans this year. Kat 21:14 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Oh, so the author means -- 38% of corn planted in 2003 will be GMO; and 80% of soybeans planted in 2003 will be GMO? I didn't get that at all.  :-/ Koyaanis Qatsi 21:19 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Sorry. Yes; that is what I meant I think. about 80% of soybean surfaces and 38 % of corn surfaces. I mixed up my sentence apparently. I tried to find back my sources for figures. Could not find it (you know KQ that my bookmark folder...well...) User:anthere
Oh, sorry for the misunderstanding ... So you haven't recovered your bookmarks? That's one thing I've taken to backing up on a separate physical drive, I've had to reformat my C: drive so often. Koyaanis Qatsi 22:11 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Anthere, KQ, I looked up the stats, and for 2002 the actual was 34% for corn and 75% for beans, http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/reports/nassr/field/pcp-bba/acrg0602.txt - the 2003 data will not be out for another month yet, and I couldn't find any estimates.
Well. My figures were not so bad then :-) I think 2002 figures will do for now.
By the way, there is a quiet revolution underway in the production of vegetables and fruit. There are now Roundup Ready strawberries, lettuce, asparagas... at least in the lab... with more coming. How this has stayed out of the public conversation has baffled me. Once they are released to growers, the Roundup strawberries are sure to take over the industry, since weed control is the major obstacle in commercial cultivation of strawberries. Kat 14:15 18 Jun 2003 (UTC)
crumbs. Well, there was a public chitchat in France about a good month ago. A web site was open for any public comment for a week. It was not advertised by media until less than 24 hours before the end of the public session. When the media suddenly woke up and rang the bell, the server was quite strained for the rest of the day. The web site became somehow unavailable. But, public feedback opportunity was officially respected :-) User:anthere
Well...you know, when I came back sunday from my week end, and downloaded my little pict card, tried to open Photoshop, and was nicely told my computer that I had not enough virtual memory to do so...I realised I had exactly 3.5 mb free left. Ooooops. I momentarily fixed the pb (I wanted to watch my picts !) by transferring old pict on a zip. That's just a patch :-( No choice now, I really have to give a tech the whole stuff, have it open to put a 60 mb inside. Well, I spent 2 hours cleaning the place instead of tracking my poor folder. Besides, some of my links are at work. So...well..

Look...

media:Coccinelle1(s).jpg

media:LarveCoccinelle(s).jpg

These are ladybird larva and adults. Ok, that is not art. That is tech

This one is more artistic. Do you like it ? media:Crataegus_oxyacantha_L(s).jpg

ant

That middle one's awesome. I never would have imagined they looked like that. Koyaanis Qatsi 22:33 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)
It was "running" real fast :-) I took about 20 picts of it, till it got tired and agreed to take some rest :-)
High resolution versions of the deleted images above — media:Coccinelle1.jpg and media:Crataegus_oxyacantha_L.jpg -- Paddu 20:26, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I've removed this sentence from the beginning of the article:

They are mainly to increase the mass of food to feed more people.

This needs to be backed up by facts, at least - I somehow doubt that the main purpose of the money spent on GM food research is "to feed more people". There are many other aims, e.g. increase shelf life / improve taste (FlavrSavr), enriching food with vitamines (Golden rice), reduction of pesticide use etc. Also the statement seems to be contradicted by the fact that developed countries form the most important marketplaces for GM food. Regards, High on a tree 03:33, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'm glad you mentioned Golden rice. Golden rice is a ge strain of rice that has been enriched with Vitamin A. Why? Well, let's think about Vitamin A. From wiki's own article Vitamin_a deficiencies lead to blindness. Not a huge problem here in the developed world, but right there in Wiki's article on Golden_rice it says that 1-2 million deaths and 500,000 cases of irreversible blindness are documented annually in Africa and Southeast Asia due to Vitamin A Deficiency (VAD). Hmm, there's food for thought (excuse the pun). So, I guess it's fair to say that at least Golden rice was created with developing countries in mind. - Meowcarrot 21:55 JST 25.July.2005

[edit] Rewrite of transgenic plants

Addressing some of the concerns raised on this talk page, I am proposing a rewite of the transgenic plant article see :Talk:Transgenic plants so that it better covers the science of developing transgenic plants and the saftey issues surrounding their release (I've done so in summary on Plant improvement). This page on food issues will then logically follow from transgenic plants. Any input would be appreciated, leave it on the transgenic plant page. --nixie 05:01, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Do you know how many bowls of rice is needed to get the amount of Vitamin A necessary to prevent blindness?

[edit] labelling GM Foods and Free trade laws

"Some nations have very strong disagreement over genetically modified organisms. For example, the European Union and Japan are willing to maintain labelling and traceability standards for GM food products, while the United States claims it violates free trade agreements."

How does this violate free trade? Are people not supposed to know what they buy? - Not if the label distinguishes products on the basis of immaterial criteria - which the US (and WTO) say is the case for production methods which produce substantially equivalent products (eg GM, according to them). Compulsory labelling for eg labour standards raises the same trade issues - consumers are to be prevented from distinguishing products on grounds that don't suit the US. Knowledge is power, etc - and taking the latter away from big US producer interests is verboten. Rd232 09:21, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I am not sure if that's the official reason the U.S. doesn't require labeling. As I've read it, the reason the FDA doesn't require labeling is because they don't view GM foods as being significantly different from non-GM foods. It's not like labeling is banned in any way, companies are free to label their food as GM/non-GM, as long as the label is accurate. I'm going to research this a little bit and probably remove this claim. Rhobite 20:55, May 15, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] (tech) backgrounds, please

As has been said before, there is rather much stress on political issues, which, I think, is a good thing, but before that, there should be a (considerable) bit more technical background and a more extensive dealing with the potential pros and cons. This is a controversial issue and most people who look this up will primarily want more extensive answers to the questions of what benefits GM may have for food production and what the potential problems are.

This touches on a wider question. Is wikipedia just an encyclopedia or should it go beyond that and give people the means to make up their own minds? A major difference between wikipedia and paper encyclopedias is that wikipedia can be updated daily (or even by the minute), so it has a much stronger potential to give a technical or scientific background behind current political issues, which is a prerequisite for a proper functioning of democracy. So, while I think that describing the political development is a good thing, I find the (not too) technical backgrounds much more important. I just made a tiny start myself, saying in a few words what BT is. I looked that up, but I still don't know what the difference between bt10 and bt11 is (which is what I wanted to look up). Just to give an example of what people might look up this subject for.

DirkvdM 09:53, 2005 Apr 17 (UTC)


Hi DirkvdM, I agree completely that the technical aspects should be addressed. So far the technical and political aspects are covered in different articles (see transgenic plants for the technical- it's a rewrite that I am still woring on). This food article is what is often described on Wikipedia as a point of view (POV) fork, and so far hasn't really been integrated to any extent, hopefully thats something that'll change soon. Feel free to make any modifications that you see fit, or if you prefer leave links and detail here and I'll have a go at it. --nixie 10:16, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

According to other articles I have read, the reason they feel no need to label the GE foods is because the process would scare away consumers and have people doing research. Kind of like what we are doing...

[edit] POV US section

From the Genetically modified food in the United States section: In the US GM food is widespread and accepted by the consumers. Some militant environmentalists are trying to instill fear, however.

This is POV and should be changed with neutral, pertinent and accurate information. Thanks. --Liberlogos 00:22, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

I rewrote that ridiculousness. Needs more specifics, though. Rhobite 20:28, May 15, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Benefits and controversies

This section is hopelessly unencyclopedic. I paste it here in the hope that the points can be developed more usefully. For now the article is IMO better off without this list:

Potential benefits

  • Crops
    • Enhanced taste and quality
    • Reduced maturation time
    • Increased nutrients, yields, and stress tolerance
    • Increased resistance to disease, pests, and herbicides
    • New products and growing techniques
  • Animals
    • Increased resistance, productivity, hardiness, and feed efficiency
    • Better yields of meat, eggs, and milk
    • Improved animal health and diagnostic methods
  • Environment
    • "Friendly" bioherbicides and bioinsecticides
    • Conservation of soil, water, and energy
    • Bioprocessing for forestry products
    • Better natural waste management
    • More efficient processing
  • Society
    • Increased food security for growing populations

Controversies

  • Safety
    • Potential human health impact: allergens, transfer of antibiotic resistance markers, unknown effects, potential carcinogenic effects due to gene disruption and use of ingrown carcinogenic pesticides and/or herbicides
    • Potential environmental impact: unintended transfer of transgenes through cross-pollination, unknown effects on other organisms (e.g., soil microbes), and loss of flora and fauna biodiversity. The largest farm-scale trial comparing biodiversity impact on GM crops with equivalent conventional crops found a significant negative impact on wildlife from GM [1].
  • Access and Intellectual Property
    • Domination of world food production by a few companies
    • Increasing dependence on Industrialized nations by developing countries

Developing Coutries can make their own GM crops. Kenya is doing this right now - virus resistant GM sweet potatoes [[2]] Ttguy 03:44, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

    • Biopiracy—foreign exploitation of natural resources
    • Loss of crop diversity. Patenting of GM crops, along with legal structures (such as national seed lists) prevents farmers from growing the majority of crop varieties and creates monopolies in the seed market. Most GM crops are simply the most commonly grown, inbred crop variety with an extra gene added.212.116.142.29 20:39, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Even if it is true that "Most GM crops are simply the most commonly grown, inbred crop variety with an extra gene added" how does a patent on such a crop prevent a farmer from growing the parent variety - the one without the transgene? Ttguy 03:44, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Well, for one, because of cross-breeding between GM and non-GM varieties, no? --Tsavage 20:47, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
If you are a farmer and plant a non-GM crop besides a GM variety then the edge of this crop may produce seed that contain a small fraction of GM seeds yes. However, this farmer has not violated any patents and he is not prevented from haversting an entire crop of his non-GM variety. He does not have to pay royalties. So... No "cross-breeding" does not prevent a farmer using a non-patented variety. Ttguy 11:17, 27 December 2005 (UTC)


It costs aproximately £2.5 million pounds to get a new crop onto the British national seed list. The seed lists get regularly updated, and varieties get dropped. The biotech companies have considerable political influence. There is a very real risk that in future the only legal crop varieties will be GM.Pignut 15:50, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
This is rubish. A GM crop can be sold to farmers on the condition that it not be saved for replanting. However, the crop that this GM crop is based on will not have been sold to the farmers under such conditions. Therefore they can legally save this seed for as long as they like. What the seed merchants do is irrelevant if you can save your own seed. But since seed merchants are out to make money and supply a demand - if there is a demand for GM free seed they will supply it.

The food and agriculture industry is not a free market, and is not likely to be any time in the near future. Farming is heavily regulated and heavily subsidised. It is producer led not consumer led. If agriculture was a free market we would not be having this debate. You can't sell something that customers don't want in a free market. The seed market is heavily consolidated in the hands of pro-GM companies.Pignut 16:35, 23 December 2006 (UTC)Pignut

If by some massive conspriacy the evil GM companies prevent one seed merchant from suppling non GM seeds then Joe Blow down the road will see an oportunity and start selling them.

"Joe Blow" is unlikely to have sufficient money to run the necessary trials, and meet all of the bureaucratic requirements. For example, if he is a small farmer, he will find it hard to prevent his plants from crossing with plants of other varieties on neighbouring farms (not necessarily GM), in order to meet the standards required for them to be sold. Batches of seed are checked for weeds, grit, and seeds that do not breed true, if this exceeds a certain percentage, the seeds are rejected. "Joe Blow" will undoubtably find himself breaking some regulation or other. These rules do not seem to apply to the big boys. A few years back an article in the British Farmers Weekly reported on a threat by seed companies to reduce the purity of the seed (i.e. allow more noxious weed seeds into the seed they sold) if farmers saved seed. In other words, a threat: "stop saving seed or we will introduce serious weeds onto your land" (the seed companies had discovered that some farmers were buying small quantities of seed from each new variety and then saving seed subsequently). The seed companies were basically claiming to have influence and to be able to break or rewrite the rules with impunity.

The cost of getting a new variety on the list is irrelevant to this discussion. What is relevant is whether GM companies could conspire to have varieties taken off the list. Do you have any evidence that a GM company can influence the dropping a variety from the National Seed list?Ttguy 03:29, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

The global seed and grain industry is heavily controlled by a small number of companies who also have strong vested interests in GM seed. These companies have already shown their ability to influence government decisions regarding national seed lists: http://www.netlink.de/gen/Zeitung/1998/981120.htm Older varieties get dropped from the list every year, and the process of this is not transparent.

  • Ethics
    • Violation of natural organisms' intrinsic values

A crop plant is not a natural organism. Ttguy 03:44, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

    • Tampering with nature by mixing genes among species

All plant breeding is "tampering with nature" Ttguy 03:44, 6 November 2005 (UTC).

    • Objections to consuming animal genes in plants and vice versa
    • Stress for animal
  • Labeling
    • Not mandatory in some countries (e.g., United States)
    • Mixing GM crops with non-GM confounds labeling attempts
  • Society
    • New advances may be skewed to interests of rich countries
    • Hubris. Politicians and corporations believe their own propaganda. GM crops fail to live up to expectations, but vested interests are too busy talking about what GM crops might achieve in future, to notice. e.g. periodic hype about nitrogen fixing cereals. Problems caused by GM technology come to be seen as problems to be solved by GM technology. Compare situation with green revolution crop breeding: Huge promises about increased crop yields, and pest and disease resistant crops, but years later, losses to pests and disease have increased due to inbreeding.
This last statment is rubbish. With the exception of Corn (and maybe few other crops) just about every major crop on the planet is already completely inbred. Ttguy 03:44, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
The most commonly grown varieties of all crops (including corn)are indeed inbred. (N.B. The word "corn" is ambiguous. In America corn means maize, in England it means wheat, in Scotland it means oats.)
Experiments in the far east have shown that growing rice the traditional way, planting saved seed consisting of many different varieties reduces disease problems. Uniform monocultures of a single variety suffer a lot more from fungal etc. diseases.
I have saved seed from many crops for a number of years. Initially I tried to keep varieties distinct and breeding true, but this proved to be a hopeless task, as different crop varieties cross pollinated. I find that the genetically heterogeneous saved seeds yield better than bought seed in almost all cases. In particular, their disease resistance seems to be better.Pignut 16:02, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Mixtures of different varieties is not the same as inbreeding. The suggestion that inbreeding causes yeild loss in the major crops is rubish because they are all inbred Ttguy 03:29, 12 November 2005 (UTC).

Yield increases due to unsustainable fertiliser use, not breeding.

It is well known the introduction of the semi-dwarf cereal varieites had a huge impact on crop yields durring the green revolution. To suggest that the green revolution had nothing to do with plant breeding is silly Ttguy 03:44, 6 November 2005 (UTC).

I have grown semi dwarf and tall cereals organically, and the yields of the dwarf varieties were very poor. Taller varieties did much better. Partly this may be due to the ability of tall cereals to suppress weeds. Dwarf cereals also suffer from fungal diseases because the grain is more likely to get splashed by mud.Pignut 15:50, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Countless yeild studies over the years confirm the yeild advantage of the introduction of semi-dwarf cereals. I believe these studies to have a bit more credability than a single farmers experience. Semi-dwarf crops have less lodging and put less energy into vegitative parts and more into seed.Ttguy 03:29, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Monocultures and new crop varieties lacking trace elements cause malnutrition, but ironically these man made problems are used to justify taking plant breeding to new extremes. "Gosh it's cold" said the emperor. "Good thing I had these new clothes, or I would have hypothermia. I'll have to order some more"212.116.142.29 20:39, 4 November 2005 (UTC) ==It is believed that many plants evolved to have abnormal amounts of certain amino acis and nutrients in order to reduce predation. Why should we let the plants win? 70.29.157.109 15:33, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

I think that the section dealing with the controversy surrounding GM foods needs to be addressed. In both the Arpad Puztai and Monsanto examples, there is no mention of the overwhelming amount of research subsuquently done which disproves the published findings. It was later determined that the majority of the damage done to rats and other test organisms was due to the animals eating such high amounts of a single food. Rats wouldnt normally eat only potatoes for months at a time, and the same effect can be observed when animals are fed non-GM foods at such high doses as well.

I think it is neccessary to go into detail about the experiments in question:

Arpad Pusztai's experiment included two controls, one consisted of rats fed on unmodified desiree red potatoes and one fed on unmodified desiree red potatoes mixed with snowdrop lectin. Neither control group of rats suffered all of the ill effects observed in the group fed on GM desiree red potatoes. This means that the potatoes became toxic as a result of the genetic modification, not simply by the snowdrop lectin, and that the rats were not simply suffering from eating too much potato. The rats were adversely affected by both raw and cooked GM potatoes, and were on these diets for only 10 days.

The results of this experiment could only be disproved by repeating the experiment, and this is no longer possible. The biotech company responsible for the GM potatoes (probably a front for a larger corporation) destroyed the potatoes, and all details of their genetic modification to stop the experiment from ever being repeated!

There has been a huge amount of deliberate misinformation about Arpad Pusztai and his experiments:

Initially the Rowett institute (Dr.Pusztai's employer) was very excited about the experiments, and gave Dr. Pusztai the go-ahead to publicise the results. This led to the interview with the documentary series World in Action. When news of the program reached the media and politicians, The Rowett institute received several phone calls from 10 Downing Street. Dr. Pusztai was invited to debate the issue with a spokesman from Monsanto on breakfast TV, but before going on air, he was informed by the Rowett institute that he was no longer allowed to reveal any details of the experiment. This left the Monsanto spokesman free to talk a lot of nonsense about the highly toxic jack bean lectin (not involved in any of the experiments), to which Dr. Pusztai could only reply "no comment".

Bizarrely, the Rowett institute initially denied that they were doing any experiments with GM food, but quickly changed their story.

After redirecting Dr. Pusztai's phoneline so no one could speak to him, and placing a legal gag on him, the Rowett institute "quoted" Dr. Pusztai saying that it was all a big mistake, the experiment had not been performed, a student had apparently accidentally published control data, and that Dr. Pusztai was very sorry and had agreed to retire.

The next lie was that Dr. Pustai had deliberately created a toxic potato in an attempt to discredit GM foods (a variation on the Jack bean lectin red herring). Jack Cunningham, the UK agriculture minister repeated this one in the house of commons, saying that the Pusztai experiments were like making a cyanide cocktail and concluding that you shouldn't mix your drinks. In reality, Dr. Pusztai had not done the genetic engineering, merely tested a product due to go on the market. Earlier research by Dr. Pusztai (the world expert on plant lectins) had shown that snowdrop lectin was toxic to insects but harmless to mammals.

The Rowett Institute then published the experimental data online, but deliberately omitted much of it so as to render the results statistically insignificant.

The lie about the rats suffering from a poor diet has already been discussed

I could go on much further. It goes without saying that many of these lies are contradictory. for more info on this see: http://plab.ku.dk/tcbh/Pusztaitcbh.htm

In a previous experiment Dr. Pusztai had fed leaves from the GM potatoes to insects. The leaves varied considerably in lectin content, but there was no correlation between lectin content and insect toxicity. In other words, some leaves contained hardly any lectin, but were highly toxic, and others contained lots of lectin but were not toxic. This seemed to suggest that the genetic modification had had unexpected side effects. Alternatively it could mean that the potatoes had been secretly genetically modified with something other than the snowdrop lectin gene (a gene for another insecticidal chemical). As I explained earlier, the details of the genetic modification were a secret, and have now been destroyed along with the potatoes, so we will probably never know.

My source here is Dr. Pusztai himself.

The implications of this story go way beyond genetic engineering. Dr. Pusztai was not on any agenda against genetic engineering, his primary concern is that science should be free from interference by political and corporate interests. Science should be about answering questions, and if the answers are not what politicians and corporations want to hear, they should not shoot the messenger212.116.142.29 20:00, 4 November 2005 (UTC)


On the whole, this article seems to be extremely one sided. Obviously written by people who are ant-GMO, and with a poor understanding of the actual science involved in these crops, and the potential benefits of them.--Doucher 21:49, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)

Please feel free to add further appropriately-sourced information, and/or rewrite (especially Public reaction). I'm not sure about "disproved"; the Puztai paragraph comes from info in a recent newspaper article which doesn't say this, and the Monsanto research is quite recent.Rd232 2 July 2005 10:15 (UTC)
Since when are newspapers fair and balanced? --brian0918™ 9 July 2005 14:59 (UTC)

I agree with Doucher. I take particular issue with the third paragraph of this section, which states, "In March 2005 these concerns were strengthened when the largest farm-scale trial comparing the biodiversity impact of GM crops with equivalent conventional crops found a significant negative impact on wildlife from GM” This is blatantly inaccurate. In fact, in the article, which he sites (as his source)says, “The scientific results made it clear that it is not the GM crops that harm wildlife but the herbicide sprayed on them.” Moreover this article is a questionable source of information. The Guardian has already printed several corrections. I advise readers to at least read secondary source (i.e. the article in the Guardian) if not the primary source (i.e. the Royal Societies 2005 Report.) -newby 16:58, July 16, 2005

I see one correction from the Guardian, on a point of economics, not science. As for the damage coming from the herbicide, "not the GM crops" - this is just semantics, given that the crops are engineered solely to withstand the herbicide in question to enable it to be used. Anyway, if you have substantial corrections to make, with appropriate sources (eg Royal Society report), please do. Rd232 22:48, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

There is no attempt at NPOV in the Challenge of Penetrating Communications Barriers section at all. In fact this section contains no actual verifiable facts. There is not even a link to the supposed "Web Site of American professors". Not a single source cited Ttguy 10:50, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] GM Foods

"GM food" redirected here, so I'm guessing this is the best place to ask.

I'm looking to buy some genetically modified food, but the article doesn't list any companies that sell it. Does anyone know of any companies that specialize in GM food? Almafeta 20:18, 20 August 2005 (UTC)my name is uncle bob

[edit] Page move

Why was this article moved to "Politics of genetically modified food"? We now have no main article about GM food. I'm moving it back, this is the best we have. Rhobite 06:48, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

This article is highly politically motivated - that is possibly why it was moved. It should be moved back.

[edit] Suposed Fear over Indirect effects

This article used to state that people are frightened of eating animals that have eaten GM foods. But nothing was cited to back up this assertion and no futher explaination was given. I removed this assertion from the article. GM foods can contain novel proteins - a protein not normally found in the food in question. Proteins consumed by animals are digested by the gut of the animal and converted into animal proteins in the cells of the animal. Thus, the novel proteins found in the GM food are not found in the meat of an animal that consumes that GM food. So any fears of indirect effects on people consuming meat from animals consuming GM foods are baseless. Ttguy 13:31, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Why is a fear that me eating GM foods will alter my meat a less groundless fear than a fear that a cow eating GM foods will alter a cow's meat? If people believe one, it makes sense that they believe the other. I have no doubt that many people would prefer out of fear to not eat meat from a cow that had eaten GMO food. A groundless baseless sceintifically irrational fear is still a real fear. A good article would point out that fears with no grounding in scientific reality still need to be addressed when it comes to a subject like food that has powerful psychological, cultural, and emotional components Flying Jazz 07:52, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Agree that the risks of eating meat/milk/eggs etc. from animals fed GM food are not great. However any boycott of GM products, (on environmental, ethical etc. grounds) is largely meaningless if animal products from animals fed on GM are not also boycotted. Approximately 50% of the worlds grain is fed to animals. If consumers simply refuse to eat the GM corn etc directly, the grain will become cheap animal feed.

[edit] Background

I removed following sentence because its unsubstantiated and POV ....the previous sentence, which is pure opinion masquerading as "neutral" science, impies that nothing but the new gene insertion changes when organisms are engineered. I agree "engineering" is not the best term - engineering typically implies stability and consistency. Many scientists feel that "genetic tinkering" would be a better description... Xmort 22:53, 18 November 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Connection Profits&Gm food propaganda

This is my first contribution to the Wiki page and to a debate, be gentle on me if I do something considered wrong :-)

I have followed the debate going on and am missing any mention of what I consider the biggest point to GM food. If we consider who creates GM food, we find it is corporations. Corporations are out to make a profit, which is not bad in itself. It can become a profit when the corporation becomes big enough to influence public and government opinion and to produce biased science as already happened int the past with tobacco, and is most probably happening with pharma and agri business right now.

some thougths on this: There _are_ reports out there, which state that GM crops need _more_ pesticide than traditional crops, not less. This is, what I believe was the core to the above mentioned article of declining biodiversity.

"Roundup Ready" is a package of (at least) 2 products, not one, a crop and a pesticide. And both products are produced by the same corporation, now go and do your math if any rational - and especially any rational and immoral - entity would cut into its own profits.- MKuschpel

Roundup ready crops mean that a farmer might switch from one herbicide (possibly produced by a Monsanto competitor) to using Roundup. So it possible for the roundup ready crops to use less herbicide and for Monsanto to increase profits - at the expense of a competitor. The other thing to note that Roundup is one of the most benign herbicides around (The Environmental Defence fund gives glyphosate (Roundup) a "Less hazardous than most chemicals in 9 of 10 ranking systems." (See EDF Scorecard on Glyphosate). For example roundup ready canola is a compeitor to conventionally bred Atrazine tolerant Canola. Atrazine is a chemical being phased out in Europe on the basis it poses an unacceptable environmental risk. So moving to roundup ready canola at the expense of Atrazine tolerant Canola is a positive event for the environment. So it is a win for the environment and for Monsanto. Ttguy 00:30, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Ttguy: You make it seem so simple. Glyphosate has its own problems and limitations, and is often used with other herbicides, including atrazine. In any case, just one of many documented problem areas is glyphosate-resistant weeds, which essentially neutralize the advantage of glypohsate-resistant crops:
The first weed to become resistant to glyphosate was rigid ryegrass in Australia in 1996. In 2000, horseweed (also called marestail) was the first glyphosate-resistant weed to appear in soybean fields the United States. Initially found in Delaware, there now nine states with glyphosate-resistant horseweed (Delaware 2000, Tennessee 2001, Indiana 2002, Maryland 2002, New Jersey 2002, Ohio 2002, Arkansas 2003, Mississippi 2003, and North Carolina 2003). Six weeds have developed North Carolina 2003). Six weeds have developed.[3]
Putting RR in rotation with other crops using other herbicides is one of the recommended strategies to avoid creating resistant weeds, meaning, use of other herbicides is required in order to safely use RR over time. And that's just one small area of consideration. There are problems with Roundup and RR crops all over the place, technically and on the business front. Trying to sum things up by simply saying that glyphosate is "safer" (than Atarazine...) is so simplistic it is kind of ridiculous. --Tsavage 06:45, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
Well it is pretty simple really. You can either use the dangerous Atrazine all the time or you can use the safer roundup most of the time and if you have glyphosate resistant weeds you can use anoter herbicide - perhaps Atrazine - some of the time. The second scenario is better for the environment no matter how you try an stack it. The fact that RR ready seeds make it possible to use a different herbicide than otherwise would be available actually reduces the possiblity of herbicide resistance because it gives the farmer another active ingredient to kill resistant weeds. Ttguy 11:33, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
"pretty simple really"? You make it sound like trivial arithmetic: "If this is bad and that is half as bad, then if you use less of this and more of that, well, add it up, things will be better?" Isn't that a major oversimplification, and downright misleading? What about complex environmental effects, the interactions between these various synthetics and the rest of...Nature? Are there upside or downsides to combining glyphosate and atrazine?
Can the unintended glyphosate resistance in weeds lead to resistance to other herbicides? --Tsavage
The use of any herbicide will eventually cause weeds to become resistant to it. This is the inevitable concequence of natural selection. This will happen if GM crops exist or not. So herbicide resistance is not an 'unintended' effect but an inevitable effect of herbicide usage. But to suggest that this inevitiablilty is a reason to not use the herbicide is an irrational argument. The argument is analogous to saying that you will not take an antibiotic that will cure your bacterial infection because, some time in the future, the species of bacteria that is currently killing you may/will become resistant to the antibiotic you are being offered.
I would also point out that the alternative to herbicide usage is cultivation - this is not only a major cause of greenhouse gas polution but also destroys soils.Ttguy 12:34, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
But further to the question does glyphosate resistance in weeds lead to resistance to other herbicides?.According to the glyphosate resistance frequently asked questions at Australias Weed Managment CRC "There is no evidence that resistance to other herbicides confers cross-resistance to glyphosate". But I guess the question you are asking is the reverse. This FAQ suggests two mechanisms exist for glyphosate resistance. One is caused by limited translocation of glyphosate within the plant. And another is caused by mutations within the EPSPS target site that allow a modest degree of resistance to glyphosate. Plants with this mechanism are typically less resistant to glyphosate than those that have reduced translocation. From this information we can summise that plants with the second mechanism will not have increased resistance to other herbicides because glyposate is unique in targeting the EPSPS protein in the plant. For the case where there is a reduced translocation in the plant we would need to know the mechanism for this reduced translocation before we could say if this sort of glyphosate resistance induces resistance to other herbicides. However, since other herbicides do appear to kill glyphosate resistant plants it is likely that reduced translocation mechanism resistance is glyphosate specific too. Ttguy 14:05, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Are your statements based on your personal findings, or on (largely agrichemical industry-driven/funded) general research? Why do you have faith in such short-term data? Because GM production doesn't even have a good 20 or 30 or 40 year history to examine (and synthetic pesticides hardly more), let alone the hundreds and thousands of years of apparently benign natural selection, and classical plant breeding, and other "traditional" agricultural practices. --Tsavage
Is this the same benign natural selection that has brought us malaria, HIV, polio, botulism etc?Ttguy 12:34, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
Is this the same classical plant breeding that produced the potato variety Lenape that contained very high levels of toxic solanine? Is this the same classical plant breeding that produced a pest-resistant celery variety that caused rashes in agricultural workers as it contained seven-fold more of the carcinogen psoralen than the control celery? Is this the same classical plant breeding that produced a squash that caused food poisoning? All three of these conventionally bred crops had to be withdrawn (see AG Haselberger: Codex guidelines for GM food. Nature Biotechnology 21-7, 739-741, 2003).Ttguy 12:34, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
You see conventionally bred is not a guarantee of safety. In fact due to the scrutiny GM crops are put under it would seem that it might be safer to go for a GM crop rather than a conventionally bred one - the score is 3 - nil against conventionally bred crops. At least when a GM plant is produced the GM breeder knows what he is puting into the new variety. With the case of the pest-resistant celery the breeder new he had pest resistance but he did not know that this was because his celery was overproducing a rash producing carcinogen. Again this example illustrates how GM is likely to be safer the conventional breeding. And we know that conventional breeding is pretty safe (but not 100% safe).
You've sidestepped the point here, that GE products are continuing to be developed and introduced, while anything near a reasonable observation period has not gone by. Nobody has empirical data on performance over even 10 years for many products... --Tsavage 23:41, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
I have not sidesteped this issue. The issue is "are GM crops inherantly any more dangerous than conventionally bred crops?". And the answer is no they are not. I raised the point that conventionally bred crops can be dangerous. But YOU sidestep that issue. You talk about how much data we have on the safety of conventionally bred crops? We don't have much data at all on each individual new conventionally bred variety. We dont saftey check these conventional varieties and every now and again they cause a slight problem as evidenced above. On the other hand for GM crops we saftey test them. We have methods for predicting if specific GM crops are likely to be more dangerous than their conventionally bred counterparts. They are safter than conventionally bred crops because they have been tested and because we know what has gone into them. Who are you to decide what a reasonable observation period is? Of the thousands of conventionally bred crops that enter the market each year how many of these are "observed" for any length of time? What is to stop another posionous celery or potato incident for occuring? On what grounds do GM crops warant "observational periods" of greater than 10 years? Ttguy 14:05, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Are you as "reasonably sure" as you make yourself sound, or are you only basing your statements on "nothing bad has happened so far"? --Tsavage 16:26, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
I am basing my statements on the knowlege of the science behind GM crops. I am basing my statements on my ability to read published peer reviewed research results for myself. Ttguy 12:34, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
"the dangerous Atrazine ... the safer roundup" A somewhat bizarre construction. Isn't this like saying, for example, "Would you rather be shot with a large calibre or a small calibre bullet?" Of course, the smaller bullet seems preferable, but would you call it the "safer" bullet? A "safe" bullet would be, like, a Nerf bullet? These are both poisons. You referenced one source that noted the "low" toxicity of glyphosates, and indeed, that is a commonly stated conclusion. However, it is not unanimous nor conclusive. For example, the glyphosate entry in the PAN Pesticides Database notes:
Toxicity to humans, including carcinogenicity, reproductive and developmental toxicity, neurotoxicity, and acute toxicity."[4]--Tsavage 16:26, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
That's interesting because when I go to PAN Pesticides Database for glyphosate it says carcinogen - not likely and accute toxicity slight. See below for more details. What you read on the page you cite is a heading. You have to follow the link to see what data the database has on the Toxicity to humans, including carcinogenicity, reproductive and developmental toxicity, neurotoxicity, and acute toxicity
Yes, I see. I struck that reference above. And so to the next point... --Tsavage 23:41, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
A USDA-prepared factsheet sounds positive, but then reveals that long-term effects haven't been studied:
Terrestrial Animals: Glyphosate is practically non-toxic to birds and mammals. It is practically non-toxic to bees. Glyphosate and its formulations have not been tested for chronic effects in terrestrial animals."[5]
Another, fully cited source adds more dimension to the rather flat picture you're presenting:
"Glyphosate can be acutely toxic to non-target plants, including aquatic plants and algae. The effects of this toxicity on natural plant succession alters the ecology of treated areas. In most cases, the plant species diversity will decrease, and along with it, the numbers of insects, mammals and birds utilizing these areas as habitat."
"Most toxicity tests cited by industry and the EPA investigate toxicity through oral exposure routes. The toxicity of glyphosate and the common surfactant POEA is much greater through inhalation routes of exposure [reference to Columbia's aerial spraying]. Experimentally induced inhalation of Roundup by rats produced 100% mortality in 24 hours. Humans ingesting as little as 100 ml of Roundup have died (suicide attempts using Roundup have a 10-20% success rate.)"[6]
The fact that you may be able to kill yourself by drinking roundup is hardly relevant to this debate. You can kill yourself with many commonly available things. But this does not mean they should be banned. eg what is the success rate from carbon monoxide poisioning from cars in gararges and hoses fed from the exhaust pipe into the car? Do we ban cars based on this rate of success?Ttguy 12:34, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
Oral toxicity of glyphosate is an important consideration for the farmer when he is apply the herbicide. He will not want to drink it and should avoid spraying it on himself. But what is important to the environment is the effects of the chemical at the doses that appear in the environment under normal use. Also you can't just look at the toxicity of roundup in isolation like this. What I am saying is you have to compare roundup to other chemicals.
Well, you've made your discussion tactics clear, if they weren't as obvious before. You selectively isolate points, turn them into black-and-white propositions, and then attempt to counter them. But, as this round indicates, you can only do that to selected points. So, you counter the PAN citation, a simple factual error, with a paragraph, then ignore points on absence of USDA study on chronic effect on mammals, ignore the loss of biodeversity issue, and the lack of study on inhalation toxicity, and focus on the next clean point, oral ingestion (which is not disputed in the first place). I'm simply trying to see how you are arguing. There is no "solution" to this sort of thing, but might as well hash it out here than on the article page... ;) --Tsavage 23:41, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
Sorry I have not addressed the biodiversity issue yet. I will do so now. Glyphosate is a herbicide. And all herbicides are designed to reduce biodiversity. They kill weeds and remove them from the environment reducing the biodiversity in the crop. All herbicides do this. Glyphosate is not unique in this. Farms are not regions of high biodiversity. What we want is highly productive farms so we don't have to build new farms on regions of high biodiversity. If we don't have more productive farms then as the population increases more and more regions of high biodiversity will need to be converted to farms. Therefore, if Round up and RR crops can increase production they have a positive impact on biodiversity. - the loss of weeds in the farm is more that compensated for by the preservation of regions of high biodiversty like forests.
Sorry I have not addressed the lack of studies on chronic effects on terestrial animals. I will address it now. - Your source on this is wrong. See EXOTOXNET on glyphosate. This source tells me that studies of glyphosate lasting up to 2 years, have been conducted with rats, dogs, mice, and rabbits, and with few exceptions no effects were observed. For example, in a chronic feeding study with rats, no toxic effects were observed in rats given doses as high as 400 mg/kg/day. Also, no toxic effects were observed in a chronic feeding study with dogs fed up to 500 mg/kg/day, the highest dose tested.
You are also wrong about their being no data for inhaltion toxiciy. The EXOTOXNET on glyphosate tells me that "the reported 4-hour rat inhalation LC50 values for the technical acid and salts were 5 to 12 mg/L, indicating moderate toxicity via this route. Some formulations may show high acute inhalation toxicity". So there is data on inhaltion toxicity. So, yes, be careful when spraying glyhosate that you don't breath it in. But this is hardly a reason to ban RR crops.
As to my only taking on selected points - I have been keeping score. Before your last posting you had raised 18 points. Of these, I addressed 14. I think this is a pretty good score. I appoligise for not addressing the other 4. But I have corrected this now. If there are any points you don't think I have adequately addressed let me know and I will give it a shot. On the other hand, of 10 points raised by TTguy 29 December, 5 have been completely ignored by Tsavage. On one Tsavage conceeds a mistake was made. One the argument is changed mid-stream. One it is claimed (s)he does not understand my point. And on two points attempts were made to address them.
Your "dangerous-safer" summary is an attempt to make a highly uncertain issue into a more black-and-white proposition, but clearly that doesn't seem to hold up to further reading.
Please note: I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, I'm just very skeptical of what you've said in the way you've said it. --Tsavage 17:06, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
I believe it is you who is being oversimplistic and it is you that should do some further reading. Perhaps you could start by looking at the PAN Pesticides Database you quote here and actually compare the data on Atrazine to Glyphosate If you were to do this you would note a few interesting points.
                              PAN Pesticides Database Glyphosate vs Atrazine

                                             Glyphosate    Atrazine
PAN Bad Actor Chemical                         No            Yes
Acute Toxicity                                 slight       slight
Carcinogen                                    Not Likely    High
Cholinesterase Inhibitor                        No          No
Ground  Water Contaminant                       ?           High
Developmental or  Reproductive Toxin            ?            ?  
Endocrine Disruptor                             ?           Suspect

key ? = Indicates no available weight-of-the-evidence summary assessment.
It is a real world fact that farmers need to use herbicides - the alternative is soil destroying cultivation. So in the real world a farmer could use Atrazine or she could choose to change to a different herbicide. Now given the choice of chemicals shown in the table above which would you prefer to have seep into your ground water? You are over simplifying by implying there is an alternative to hebicicide use that does not have any negative concequences. But in the real world all choices have some concequence. You ask hypothetical questions about interactions between Atrazine and Glyphosate and suggest that because the answers are unknown we should not proceed. You are asking us to forgo the obvious benefits of ceasing the use of a known carcinogen and ground water contaminant because of a hypothetical danger. For an analogy how about - "I am not going to move out of the path of this truck because I might stub my toe on the footpath".
Anyway in Europe at least the herbicide you would use in rotation with Glyphosate would not be Atrazine because it is being banned.Ttguy 12:34, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
There's a pretty big assumption to expect to be taken at face value: It is a real world fact that farmers need to use herbicides I'd agree without verifiable support that it is a real world fact that farmers use herbicides, but need is a big word. What is that based on? Can you give an example of how elimination of synthetic herbicides would cause catastrophe on any meaningful scale (that is, peer-review research on short-, medium- or long-term effects of not using herbicides)? --Tsavage 23:41, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
I hate to say it but this question is very naive. You are basically saying what is the evidence that farmers need to practice weed control. Weed control has been a fundamental part of traditional agricultural practices since the invention of agriculture. But lets assume that you are not calling into question the need for farmers to control weeds. Lets assume that you know that if you don't control weeds your crop will produce very poorly. YOu have had a vege garden at some time in your life - right? And you did weed it - right? Why did you weed it? Because if you did not you would get stuff-all in the way of vege yield. So the question comes down to what is the best way to control weeds. There are 3 ways. 1. Cultivation, 2. Hand weeding and 3. Hebicides. Handweeding only works on the small scale and we have a lot of people to feed in this world so we can count this one out as a viable future method. Now we have a long history of cultivation. And cultivation has a lot of negative effects. Soil compaction and soil erosion. Americas Dust Bowl of the 1930s is an example of what is bad about cultivation. The use of herbicides forms part of the "No-Till" or "Zero-Till" method of Agriculture. This method has many documented benefits when compared to soils prepared by cultivation. These benefits include increased accumulation of soil organic matter (Reicosky, Donald C. and Lindstrom, Michael J. 1993. Fall Tillage Methods: Effect on Short Term Carbon Dioxide Flux from Soil. In Agronomy Journal. 85:1237-1243. 1993 and Aguilera, Silvia Maria et.al. 1999. Dinamica del carbono en suelos con distintos sistemas de labranza. In Frontera Agrícola, Vol. 5, N° 1 y 2. Ed Universidad de la Frontera : Temuco, Chile. Pp.33-38.). Improved soil phosphorus content and improved plant availabily of phosphorous ( Moraes Sá de, Joao Carlos. 1997. Reciclagem de nutrientes. In Proceedings of the fifth AAPRESID annual No Till Conference. AAPRESID : Rosario, pp. 99-131.). Enhanced mycorrhyzal fungal development (Wright, Sarah 1998. Increase in aggregate stability and glomalin form arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi on no till farming systems. In Proceedings of the sixth AAPRESID annual No Till Conference. AAPRESID : Rosario. pp. 195-202). More efficient use of water ( Dardanelli, J.1998. Eficiencia del uso del agua según sistemas de labranza. In Siembra Directa, J.L.Panigatti et. al. Eds. Hemisferio Sur : Buenos Aires. pp.107-115.). Reduced soil errosion (Papendick, R.I. and Moldenhauer, W.C.1995. " Crop Residue Management to Reduce Erosion and Improve Soil Quality ". USDA (United States Dpt. of Agriculture). Agric. Research Service. Conservation Research Report Nº 40.)
This No-Till method of farming is very widespread around the developed worlds farms. These are farms that were suffering from non-sustainable practices like over cultivation until they introduced No-till. So yes - in answer to your question - if No-Till was stopped there would be major catastrophic effects on farms. The farms would become non-sustainable. Ttguy 14:05, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
By the way - what other sorts of herbicides are ther other than "synthetic" ones? Ttguy 14:05, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Concentrated vinegar is an example of a natural herbicide. It has however been banned by the FDA (I'll be pickling with atrazine from now on) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pignut (talk • contribs) 10:06, 17 December 2006 (UTC).
It is you Tsavage that is trying to paint everything as black and white. According to you all herbicides are the same - they are all black. So come on Tsavage answer the question "Now given the choice of chemicals shown in the table above which would you prefer to have seep into your ground water?" Ttguy 14:05, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Much is made about glyphosate resistant weeds. But by the very fact that RR crops are selling like hotcakes tells me that glyphosate resistant weeds are not yet a major problem for farmers. Because if they were then farmers would not waste good money on glyphosate and RR crops.Ttguy 11:33, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
"selling like hotcakes" Respectfully, here your common sense seems to have left you. If the RR system ramps up yield for, literally, a few years, and then the effectiveness collapses, leaving a bunch of resistant weeds, what good is that? -- Tsavage 16:26, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
What good is that? Well it is several years of increased food production and improved environment. That is what good it is. All resistant weeds mean is you can't kill them with glyphosate. At the end of the process we are no worse off than before we started to use RR technology. Except we have had increased yeilds and lower herbicide toxicity for the period where RR technology worked. We have had 10 years of RR technology and it does not look like dying yet. 10 years and counting of improved yields and low environmental impact looks good to me.Ttguy 12:34, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Does glyphosate use go up over several years of production on one farm? Is there a new-and-improved next generation RR product waiting to take over and maintain these great yields if and when RR begins to fail (I believe not)? -- Tsavage 16:26, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes. There are improved generations of RR ready crops being bred all the time. Crop breeding goes on with improvments to yeild etc bred in by conventional breeding and Monsanto ensures that these improved lines are available in RR versions. For example see SeedQuest newsletter anouncing the release of 17 new RR varieties of Soybean for 2006 planting. Ttguy 14:05, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
If glyphosate resistant weeds were to become widespread, what would be needed would not be a next generation RR crop, but a next generation glyphosate. In this vein there are other herbicides to consider - eg Glufosinate-ammonium - sold as Liberty. But when you think about it what you appear to be trying to suggest is that roundup is really bad because of its toxicity etc and we should not be using it. But on the other hand you appear to be concerned that we might get glyphosate resistant weeds and we will have to stop using it. Surely if the former is true then the latter is a good outcome and we should be supporting RR ready crops because they will bring down the fall of the "toxic" glyposate sooner rather than later. You appear to be trying to have your cake and eat it too.Ttguy 12:34, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm getting less and less from your replies. If "RR versions" are being made available for the latest and greatest new hybrids, what advantage is that if RR effectiveness is failing? Liberty, huh? So one solution is to start substituing a different herbicide and its companion GE resistant crops? I don't think the rest, your cake-related comments, has anything directly to do with the topic? --Tsavage 23:41, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
The cake comment has everything to do with your argument. You are saying glyphosate is so wonderful that if we can't use it because of resistant weeds then we will have a "food system security" problem. But on the other hand it is some deadly bullet like posion.
Yes one solution to resistance to one herbicide is to use a different one. If they are both safe then so what? Ttguy 14:05, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
And what is selling like hotcakes an indicator of, exactly? Crack sells like hotcakes, so that must mean that drug law enforcement isn't a major problem for drug dealers? When Vioxx sold like hotcakes, that must've meant that studies showing it could quite as well kill you as cure you weren't a major problem for the manufacturer, prescribing doctors, pharmacists or the public? Hmmm, I guess I get it... --Tsavage 16:26, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
My point about RR crops is that they are being purchased in increasing numbers. They cost farmers money to buy. I grew up on a farm and I know that after a farmer spends thousands of dollars spraying weeds on his crop he looks to see if the weeds have been killed. If they have not then next time he will not use that herbicide. Therefore, if roundup resistant weeds were a major problem in the real world, then RR crops would not be increasing the market share.Ttguy 12:34, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
RR crops is that they are being purchased in increasing numbers Really! I couldn't Google any instant sources. Do you have a reference for that...? --Tsavage 23:41, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
Why has your argument now changed from accepting that RR crops were selling like hot cakes (27Dec2005) to disputing that RR crops are selling well(30Dec2005)? Anyway easily obtainable data verifys this as a fact. See PG Economics Study figure 3 and figure 4. Figure 3 shows rapid adoption of GM soybeans without any signs of a platueing of adoption rates. Figure 4 shows that the only GM trait in Soybeans is herbicide tolerance. The AGBIOS Database on approved GM crops indicates that the only other GM herbicide resistance trait in Soybean is PAT resistance. This is Bayers LibertyLink technology. My Yahooing of the web would suggest that LibertyLink Soybeans are not however in commercial production. Therfore I believe all the herbicide tolerant soybean data in these figures are due to RR crops. RR crops are increasing market share. See also [ISAAA report] which tells us that in 2004 Biotech soybean occupied 48.4 million hectares, up from 41.4 million hectares in 2003.Ttguy 14:05, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
One more comment... Sorry, I thought I'd finished with this thread, but this last point was really bothering me. Pulling the "I grew up on a farm" card to imply that "practical, down-to-earth farmers only support technology that works" is so bad. Farmers in the US and Canada farmers (at the very least) in the 70s and 80s, bought into the real estate bubble and slick ag tech marketing, and government pressure to "get big or get out", leveraged their properties to the hilt, bought tons of high farm tech, created massive increases in short term productivity, and basically bankrupted themselves. It really is sad, and probably disrespectful to your farming ancestors, to say that progress is adopting expensive technology that leads to losing your land, your business and your way of life. Maybe this was inevitable for any number of reasons, but to use the "I grew up on a farm" angle as some sort of homespun, practical inside knowledge thing doesn't wash, farmers are one of the biggest groups to get sucked in by overpriced unsustainable technological developments, and so can hardly be looked to for practical business sense or technological savvy. Today, they're just waiting for their latest CD-ROM software upgrades, like everyone else in the digital world (well, a slight, sadder exaggeration, only the biggest ones with the latest microprocessor controlled, GPS driven gear are, but anyhow...) Anymore... Thanks. It's all part of the discussion... --Tsavage 18:29, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
To the farmer RR crop is not high-tech. It is just a variety you can spray with a herbicide. My "I grew up on a farm" comment was just to note that farmers are willing to try something but they are always very sceptical. They will try it and then check to see that it is working for them. They will be out there checking what weed survived their spraying. And if some did they will think twice about buying the technolgy next year. But the technology is selling. So the Glyphosate resistant weeds have not had a major impact - yet. Ttguy 14:05, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Dear Tsavage - what are the "other problems" with roundup and RR crops ? Ttguy 11:33, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, let's see. Here are some other problems, as expressed from various quarters. Personally, I don't know how valid they may be, but they certainly seem plausible, well-researched, significant...
  • increased use of glyphosate and other herbicides Source: A new report from Dr. Charles Benbrook, director of the Northwest Science and Environmental Policy Center, Idaho, concludes that the 550 million acres of GM corn, soybeans and cotton planted in the US since 1996 has increased pesticide use (herbicides and insecticides) by about 50 million pounds. Benbrook is a respected agricultural economist and was Executive Director of the US National Academy of Sciences Board on Agriculture from 1984 to 1990.[7] Something like a 20% increase is noted. Reasons include the falling cost of glyphosate (particularly, after Monsanto's patent on glyphosate ran out in Sep 2000), and the increased resistance of weeds. --Tsavage 16:26, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes glyphosate use is increasing. At the expense of more dangerous herbicides. This is a good outcome. Along with this increase is an increase in the use of No-Till agriculture. This is also a good outcome - our soils will last longer. So with Dr Benbrooks analysis where he just looks at active ingredients it looks like things are bad. But a less simplistic analysis of the situation - taking into account the environmental effects of different herbicides - leads to a different conclusion. Such an analysis has been done by the USDA Economic Research Service. This report states:
Glyphosate binds to the soil rapidly, preventing leaching, and is biodegraded by soil bacteria (Malik et al., 1989). In fact, glyphosate has a half-life in the environment of 47 days (Wauchope et al., 1993),compared with 60-90 days for the herbicides it commonly replaces. In addition, glyphosate has extremely low toxicity to mammals, birds, and fish (Malik et al., 1989). The herbicides that glyphosate replaces are 3.4 to 16.8 times more toxic, according to a chronic risk indicator based on the EPA reference dose for humans. Thus, the substitution caused by the use of herbicide-tolerant soybeans results in glyphosate replacing other synthetic herbicides that are at least three times as toxic and that persist in the environment nearly twice as long.
I would not necessarly believe everything Dr Benbrook has to say. For example he claims that Soybean yeilds are "plateuing". However, on November 11, 2005, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that the nationwide yield/acre for America's 2005 crop (i.e., when more than 90% of U.S. soybean acres were planted to biotech soybeans) was a record highest-ever.
I believe the US Dept of Ag is a more indpendant source than Dr Benbrook. He may have been on National Academy of Sciences Board on Agriculture in the past. But now he would appear to be in the paid employ of the Organic Food industry. He has been listed for at least a year and a half now as the science director or Chief Scientist of the Organic Center [8], which "works to accelerate the consumer switch from conventional to organic products" [9], which is a project of the Organic Trade Association. The OTA is a business association that focuses on the organic business community in North America, with a mission to promote the growth of organic trade [10]. Given that the organics industry has funded much of the criticism of GM crops, and funds Benbrook, it's hard to see that Benbrook is truly independent. Ttguy 12:34, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't have any particular belief invested in Dr. Benbrook. By saying he works for the organics industry, I suppose you're suggesting that he is essentially lying or spinning things completely out of sync with "reality". Oh well, that's not too original. (FYI, the OTA represents the organic arm of the major food industry in the US; while it may seem to "attack" conventional farming, it's not; members include Kraft, Dole and the like, and the focus is on larger-scale production and national/international trade, so using "in the employ of the OTA" isn't too damning for your purposes.) --Tsavage 23:41, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
Thankyou for making my point for me. The OTA is as you point out part of big business. And as a business they want to increase market share. And what is one good way to increase market share of organic foods? Scare people about GM. Thus, Chuck Benbrook is imployed by OTA to scare people about GM. I would add that the only reason I raise Benbrooks impariality was your attempt to swipe at the intregity of any research funded by biotech industry. In the end it does not matter who funds the research. What matters is the quality of the data on the methods used. And on this score Dr Benbrook does not do well.
Dr Benbrook has been widely critised because he is quite selective about what data he includes in his analysis. For example Benbrook quotes studies that compare crop yields in the absence of weeds. A valid comparison is to compare GM and non-GM in the presence of weeds that are controled in ways that a farmer would use. Such studies have been done and Benbrook could quote them. Eg Reddy and Whiting (Weed Technology 14: 204-211) found no significant difference in soybean yields between the best herbicide program (dimethenamid, imazaquin, acifluorfen and bentazon) for conventional soybeans compared to Roundup Ready with two applications of glyphosate, although the latter program yielded 9% higher. Culpepper et al. (Weed Technology 14: 77-88) found no significant difference in soybean yields between the best herbicide program for conventional soybeans (dimenthenamid, imazaquin and two applications of chlorsulfuron) and Roundup Ready with two applications of glyphosate. The latter program yielded 12% higher in the first year and 5% lower in the second year. Both studies reported better financial returns for the Roundup Ready compared to the conventional system. Shaw et al. (Weed Technology 15: 676-685) compared yields in conventional soybeans and Roundup Ready soybeans. The former had a variety of herbicide programs depending on site and year, whereas the latter had two applications of glyphosate at all sites in all years. At a dryland site there was no significant difference between yields of conventional and Roundup Ready soybeans, although the latter yielded between 4 and 13% lower depending on year. At one irrigated site, there was again no significant difference in one year where the Roundup Ready soybeans yielded 8% higher. At the other site, yields of Roundup Ready soybeans were significantly lower (by 40%) due to poor hemp sesbania control with glyphosate. These three examples simply illustrate that yield comparisons can be quite variable between sites and years depending on a number of factors including weed pressure and varietal tolerance to herbicides, but frequently the differences between conventional and Roundup Ready types are not significant.
And it seems kind of disingenuous to point to the USDA as a blanket "better" source. --Tsavage 23:41, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
Well being a government funded body they don't have any commercial barrow to push so therefore they are more likely than Dr Benbrook to be indpendant.Ttguy 14:05, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Really, in the end, you haven't said anything more than you started with, which was: glyphosate is better because it's less toxic than, um, atrazine. This is not very interesting nor informative. I'll stop here (I did read your points below). Thanks again for the replies... --Tsavage 23:41, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
No my points are several. Glyphosate is less toxic than a lot of hebicides. It is cheaper than a lot of herbicides. It is more biodegradable than a lot of herbicices. RR crops allow increaded use of Zero-Till farming with major benefits to sustainablity.
  • increasing complications with RR requiring other herbicides and additional cost In crop rotations, resistant volunteer crops are turning up where they're not wanted (like, RR corn appearing in an RR soy planting). This requires the use a second herbicide TO KILL THE GLYPHOSATE-RESISTANT CROP. While herbicide mixing is common, this is a bit absurd: crops have been turned into superweeds. Monsanto successfully applied for a patent, granted in 2001, for this sort of thing: "The present invention is directed to tank mixtures and premixtures of a glyphosate herbicide and a second herbicide to which a first species is susceptible and a second species is resistant."(US Patent no.6,239,072) Requiring complex new mixtures to deal with unannounce, possibly unforeseen side effects of RR, seems like a farming problem to me? --Tsavage
No doubt herbicide resistant volunteers could potentially be a problem. Surely however this is hardly an earth shattering problem. The only impact it has in on the farm. If a farmer is having issues with this and the benefits of the RR system don't outway this hassle then he can choose to switch to a different herbicide and drop RR. However, again I would suggest that the sales of RR crops suggest that herbicide resistant volunteers are not a major problem in the real world.Ttguy 12:34, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
  • overplanting of RR crops threatens food system security There is concern that, given the predominance of GM crops in major food systems (of soybeans, cotton, corn and canola, up to 80% in the US and Canada are GE RR/glyphosate-resistant), decline in effectiveness of the system, such as due to weed resistance, could have a serious effect on production. Basically, if these yields can't be maintained in a system configured to rely on them, it could spell food trouble.--Tsavage 16:26, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
All resistant weeds mean is you can't kill them with glyphosate. At the end of the process we are no worse off than before we started to use RR technology. Except we have had increased yeilds and lower herbicide toxicity for the period where RR technology worked.Ttguy 12:34, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
This kind of thing seems pretty obvious. And this is only RR. There are other closely realated issues, for example with GM Bt corn (like, how much pesticide are these plants producing?). A little bit of a thoughtful look, and the whole GM thing turns into a giant ball of confusion... You can't just chop out the bits and pieces you want and expect that everything is OK because it's been made to sound so... Everything seems quite uncertain and unstable to me... --Tsavage 17:56, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

There are hosts of cases of alledged immoral behaviour in the GM food industry, including the already mentioned bio piracy on indigenous and long-time cultured herbs and crop. The article already mentioned the "terminator" seeds, what it fails to mention is that they now try to introduce it in other coutries:

"We've continued right on with work on the Technology Protection System [Terminator]. We never really slowed down. We're on target, moving ahead to commercialize it. We never really backed off." - Delta & Pine Land

http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=107018

The terminator technology has exactly 0 worth for farmers or consumers .. must be something else behind the development. Maybe the possibility to finally introduce patents into a market that was thought to be unpatentable until GM food came along? Maybe the possibility to make more profit? When we look at GM food, we have to not only look at the plants, but at the whole package.

The contribution to farmers and consumers from "terminator" is that a company gets to profit from the research they put into to improving a crop and can thus afford to do more research to produce more improvements. Just as software companys imploy copy protection to stop people using their intelectual property illegally, terminator technology offers the same to protect intelectual property contained within crop plants. Ttguy 00:37, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

GM food is a way to oligolipolize or monolipolize a market which was thought immune to such machinations because of diversity. And profits from this development will _not_ go neither into farmer's nor into the consumer's coffer.--MKuschpel 21:44, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

As of 2004 Roundup was no longer patented - there are numerous companies producing glyphosate. Terminator technology is not currently used in any commerically available plant- so I don't really understand your argument - you are essentially saying that a comapny is bad for wanting to profit from its intellectual property, which is hardly a revelation, or an issue specific to this field.--nixie 00:39, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of NPOV tag: 6-Dec-2005

The NPOV tag was apparently placed on July 1, 2005. (Revision as of 19:20, 1 July 2005 Spikehay (Talk | contribs) Biased to an anti-GM point of view. Quite blatant in "Controversies" and "Public Reaction."). I removed it for the following reasons:

  • I could find no support for this tagging on the Talk page .
  • The issues mentioned in the edit comment (above) seem to have been resolved; the sections mentioned either no longer exist, or have been rewritten.

Also, I read the version at that time, and the current version, and scanned the History. It seems sections which may well have been seen as POV have been significantly and specifically rewritten to address this. I also checked the NPOV section above: the discussion of Arpad Pusztai is not all that clear; in any case, the content in question about Pusztai, and also concerning the other separate points mentioned in that section, has been rewritten, so the Talk references no longer apply to the current version.

Basically, the article has been substantially rewritten, and seems "fine" to me. Given that, and the fact that the original complaint wasn't properly supported, the NPOV tag no longer applies. Any new challenge should start fresh... IMHO. :) --Tsavage 21:36, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Controversy over risks and Pusztai rat data

TheTheB deleted discussion over the details of Pusztai's rat research. For neutral point of view (NPOV) purposes the claims of Pusztai can not be presented as fact. Details about the controversy surounding his data must be aired. I have restored the details. I have removed comment about how many papers Pustai has published and the comment that the papers were not in genetics in an effor to improve NPOV.Ttguy 22:59, 25 December 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Tendentious and confusing presentation of statistics in Benefits and Risks

"This reduction results from decreased fuel use, about 1.8 billion litres in the past nine years, and additional soil carbon sequestration because of reduced ploughing or improved conservation tillage associated with biotech crops. In 2004, this reduction was equivalent to eliminating more than 10 billion kg of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, or removing 5 million cars — one-fifth of the cars registered in the United Kingdom — from the road for one year.[1]"

A reduction over nine years is compared with removing 1/5 of cars from UK roads for one year, instead of 1/45 of the cars for an identical nine-year period, which is the only meaningful comparison.

--Rob 11:51, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] factual/NPOV edit

Semi-newbie here, open to your feedback. Thx for the great article. I think NPOV could use cont fine tuning, but folks seem to be on it, and i'm more of a reader than an editor, just making changes that are clear-cut to me. The sentence i replaced -- "Because Golden Rice disproved many of the claims made by GM food opponents about GM food (e.g. GM crops can only help the rich, GM crops will force farmers to be dependant on multinational companies, etc.) the critics were forced to condemn this GM crop as a ploy and a public relations move." -- was false/POV because 1] Golden rice (gr) "disproving" the critics is very arguably false in the abstract, and certainly false re the reaction of many actual critics. 2] Both of the paranthetical examples of disproven critique in fact cont'd re gr. 3] The pr ploy critique is fundamental (ie that greenwashing is pervasive) and far predates golden rice; and "forced" makes it sound insincere. My replacement is accurate as a report of the critics and i believe is appropriate to "interest group reaction" under "benefits and risks". Let me know, thx again, hope this helps, "alyosha" (talk) 23:47, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Your edit seems to be holding up... ;) --Tsavage 18:11, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I just have to add something. Anyone notice that this statement: "Proponents would argue that such a claim is hard to maintain when Golden rice is licenced for free use to subsistance farmers." sounds an awful lot like: "Heroin dealers would argue that such a claim is hard to maintain when heroin is provided for free to the needy." Anything to get that addiction going, eh? --DEL

The problem with this analogy is that herion is dangerouse and addictive. Golden rice is neither of these. Ttguy 23:23, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] On citing sources

My suggestion specifically for a topic as current and potentially contentious as this, inline citation of sources (as in WP:CITE) should be presented with substantive changes. Of course, verifiability is the WP policy, but personally, I think inline citations can be greatly misused: they can seriously compromise readability, and also be used to bolster POV, among other things, so wholesale inline citing across all articles would seem to be not good (bibliographies may often be better)...IMO. In any case, as guidelines evolve, I bring up this up simply to point out that, HERE SPECIFICALLY, inline citations could really help produce a great, credible, all-round useful article by allowing "both sides" (which, inevitably, there are...) to actually check sources as things develop... Just a humble suggestion... --Tsavage 18:11, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Useful Article/Study

anyone editing the article should read this http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article337253.ece TitaniumDreads 20:16, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

There must be something wrong with the study of Dr. Ermakova. Some rumours of unexpected teratogenity she found in RuR soybean circulated the internet already while ago, but her article didn' appear yet in peer-reviewed journal. In other words - the results are still not confirmed and no conclusions should be made from some alarming news in daily press. I am almost certain that the reported toxicity of GM soybean is result of either fungal contamination of the soybean meal used or some other inadvarent contamination. The difference between normal and GM soybean is simply too big to be caused by GM modification. Look at this - since mid nineties most of the cows, pigs and poultry in USA, Canada, Argentina and Europe are fed a diet based mostly on GM-soybean or GM-canola meal. If there is even a slightest effect on health of these millions of animals, it would have been noticed long time ago. Not speaking about 55 % mortality in piglets, calves or chicken. Xmort 21:25, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

What about this story (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0522-03.htm) linked to from the above? (secret research carried out by Monsanto showed that rats fed modified corn had smaller kidneys and variations in the composition of their blood than rats fed non-GM food as part of the research project) Newlyarrived 20:14, 3 September 2006 (UTC)Newlyarrived

[edit] Little edits

"For some, fears of the safety of GM food for human consumption remain, despite 10 years of catastrophe free consumption of such foods in the USA."

I think the latter phrase of this sentence has slightly sarcastic overtones. Since the article focuses specifically on controversies, I took out "for some" and replaced with "Some fear for the safety of GM food". It's a little stronger, but more accurate and balanced in my opinion. I also think that the entire first paragraph should be reworked to give a basic overview of people's reservations regarding GM instead of jumping to the Pusztai study (save for 2nd paragraph).

"The Royal Society's review of the Pusztai data had led to the damning verdict that the study "is flawed in many aspects of design, execution, and analysis and that no conclusion should be drawn from it" Royal Society Report."

I think "led to the damning verdict" is quite biased language, and it does make a lot of difference to how the article reads. So I replaced with the more straightforward "concluded that the study". The current reading suggests that the Royal Society review is the last word on the situation.

Memilygiraffe 21:42, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] It will help you

The food will help because the food has vitemens in the food and will help cure stuff you might have or fight off something you might get in the near futer. P.S. you do have a choice wether you eat the food or not.

I hold issue with your "P.S." statement, as there is serious issue as to the labeling of products that contain GM foods. It should also be noted that GM crops can easily end up in nearby (non-GM) fields unbeknownst to the farmer. I might also add that a large amount of GM foods do not have any vitamins added, but instead resist insects or weeds. There is also evidence that those that do contain vitamins (Golden Rice for example) have little practical use, as one would have to consume far greater portions than average in order to gain the benefits. --Al the Sailor 05:16, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] PG Economics study

There used to be a claim (by user Acaryatid) that the PG economics web site did not have anything to justify their claim that GM crops have reduced green house gas emissions on their web site. Well on the page linked to [11] there is a link to a PDF version of the study. [12]. And inside this document is much detail on how they came up with the figures. For eg page 83 of the report has data on how the reduction in the sprays of insecticides on cotton plants that are now GM rather than non-GM has reduced the number of tractor passes with a concequential redcution in the use of fossil fuels. So there is in fact evidence that GM crops have reduced green house gas emissions available on the web site. Hence I deleted this spurious claim Ttguy 06:37, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

The article also used to have the following text which I have deleted

For example, one report which PG Economics did have posted cites a corn boer crop loss as a problem, which could destroy 15% of a crop total. In the summary they cite the RoundUp seed as reducing the loss by 70%. The total crop increase is actually 70% of 15% which is actually a 10.5% increase in the harvest total. Similar selective reporting techniques are common among firms in the investment community so all data should be taken with the understanding it is produced to encourage stock holders to support the stock.

Acaryatid has not referenced what report he is refering to. This means no-one can check the if the article being refered to is in fact trying to claim a 70% increase in yield. I doubt that any article from the PG economics would make such a claim. What also makes me doubt that this Acaryatid has correctly interpreted what ever article he/she is refereing to is that fact that they suggest is is "RoundUp Seed" that is preventing crop loss from Corn borer. The GM trait that protects corn from Corn borer is BT corn - other wise known as insect resistant corn - not "roundup seed" which is a herbicide tolerance trait. I would also mention that a 10.5% yield increase is a very signigicant yield increase in the scheme of crop improvment since plant breeders often stuggle to get yield increases of 2-3% with conventional plant breeding. Get your facts straight and cite your source and then re-edit the page. Ttguy 21:24, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Acaryatid writes further quotes below and claims that this exchange proves that GM crops do not increase yield or reduce pesticide use. This data has no bearing on the overall global impact of GM crops on yield nor pesticide use and thus I have deleted it from the article.

Further indications that GM crop yields are not increased, nor pesticide use decreased are reflected in the following
Press Release from DuPont with comments by Monsanto. [2] -- Note that this link is now dead.
Bloomberg News 5/21/04 DuPont creates new gene trait for corn By Jack Kaskey
The DuPont Co…has developed a genetic trait that would compete with technology from rival Monsanto Co….Researchers found corn modified with the trait flourished in fields sprayed with six times the usual dose of glyphosate…to compete with Monsanto's Round-Up Ready seed technology…
Repeated applications of glyphosate can lower crop yields of Monsanto's seeds as the herbicide builds up in the plant. Monsanto has developed newer traits to overcome this, company spokesman Bryan Hurley said.

Big deal - a Monsanto spokesman admits that repeated spraying of roundup can reduce yields. The reason why this has no bearing on the discussion about improved yields is that farmers do not repeatedly spray roundup on their crop - it is too expensive to do this when one spray is enough.

[edit] Benefits and Risk section NPOV and cleanup

I removed section talking about future possible benefits as this is pie in the sky. I removed the weaselling about the benefits from reduced greenhouse gas emissions. If someone wants to dispute this fact then they need to counter the analysis in the PG economics study that proves this point. Pointing the finger at who may or may not have funded this study does not count as a criticism. Specific criticism of the methods used in the study or of the statistical data that the study is based on would count as criticism. The fact is that insect resistant GM crops are selling very well. They cost more to the farmer to buy. Thus, they must work or the farmers would not still be buying them. Thus, the farmers must be spraying less insecticide (other wise why would they spend more on the crop but still have to spray insecticide). Less spraying means less tractor passes over the crop means less fuel used means less greenhouse gases. This is, IMHO, not disputable Ttguy 06:49, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

This contribution from Acaryatid (that I removed) is nothworthy in itself because it wrong in so many ways

It is noteworthy that the RoundUp or glyphosate used as a pure herbicide is strictly controlled by the EPA and banned from sale in many states. Inside the seeds as a GMO "food" it falls to the FDA and USDA who do not require safety testing.

1. Glyphosate is not banned from sale in any state of the US as far as I am aware. If the author would like to mention which states and supply a source for this statement it would be good.

2. Glyphosate is not "inside" the seeds of GMO foods. Rather the glyphosate resistance gene is inside the seeds of GM crops. These are total different things and it a sign of the authors great ignorance to equate the two.

3. The EPA under section 408 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (21 USC 348a) enforces specific limits on herbicide residues on crops and that these residue limits are set after the herbicides have undergone safety testing.

4. The safety of the glyphosate resistance gene has been studied - there are at least 14 peer reviewed studies in the literature - see below.

Hammond BG, Vicini JL, Hartnell GF, Naylor MW, Knight CD, Robinson EH, Fuchs RL, Padgette SR. 1996 The feeding value of soybeans fed to rats, chickens, catfish and dairy cattle is not altered by genetic incorporation of glyphosate tolerance. J Nutr. 126:717-27.
Sidhu RS, Hammond BG, Fuchs RL, Mutz JN, Holden LR, George B, Olson T. 2000 Glyphosate-tolerant corn: the composition and feeding value of grain from glyphosate-tolerant corn is equivalent to that of conventional corn (Zea mays L.). J Agric Food Chem. 48:2305-12.
Cromwell GL, Lindemann MD, Randolph JH, Parker GR, Coffey RD, Laurent KM, Armstrong CL, Mikel WB, Stanisiewski EP, Hartnell GF. 2002 Soybean meal from roundup ready or conventional soybeans in diets for growing-finishing swine. J Anim Sci. 80:708-15.
Brown PB, Wilson KA, Jonker Y, Nickson TE. 2003 Glyphosate tolerant canola meal is equivalent to the parental line in diets fed to rainbow trout. J Agric Food Chem. 51:4268-72.
Donkin SS, Velez JC, Totten AK, Stanisiewski EP, Hartnell GF. 2003 Effects of feeding silage and grain from glyphosate-tolerant or insect-protected corn hybrids on feed intake, ruminal digestion, and milk production in dairy cattle. J Dairy Sci. 86:1780-8.
Erickson GE, Robbins ND, Simon JJ, Berger LL, Klopfenstein TJ, Stanisiewski EP, Hartnell GF. 2003 Effect of feeding glyphosate-tolerant (roundup-ready events GA21 or nk603) corn compared with reference hybrids on feedlot steer performance and carcass characteristics. J Anim Sci. 81:2600-8.
Grant RJ, Fanning KC, Kleinschmit D, Stanisiewski EP, Hartnell GF. 2003 Influence of glyphosate-tolerant (event nk603) and corn rootworm protected (event MON863) corn silage and grain on feed consumption and milk production in Holstein cattle. J Dairy Sci. 86:1707-15.
Ipharraguerre IR, Younker RS, Clark JH, Stanisiewski EP, Hartnell GF. 2003 Performance of lactating dairy cows fed corn as whole plant silage and grain produced from a glyphosate-tolerant hybrid (event NK603). J Dairy Sci. 86:1734-41.
Taylor ML, Hartnell GF, Riordan SG, Nemeth MA, Karunanandaa K, George B, Astwood JD. 2003 Comparison of broiler performance when fed diets containing grain from roundup ready (NK603), yieldgard x roundup ready (MON810 x NK603), non-transgenic control, or commercial corn. Poult Sci. 82:443-53.
Taylor ML, Hartnell GF, Riordan SG, Nemeth MA, Karunanandaa K, George B, Astwood JD. 2003 Comparison of broiler performance when fed diets containing grain from YieldGard (MON810), YieldGard x Roundup Ready (GA21), nontransgenic control, or commercial corn. Poult Sci. 82:823-30.
Brake DG, Evenson DP 2004 A generational study of glyphosate-tolerant soybeans on mouse fetal, postnatal, pubertal and adult testicular development. Food Chem Toxicol. 42:29-36.
Hammond B, Dudek R, Lemen J, Nemeth M. 2004 Results of a 13 week safety assurance study with rats fed grain from glyphosate tolerant corn. Food Chem Toxicol. 42:1003-14.
Hyun Y, Bressner GE, Ellis M, Lewis AJ, Fischer R, Stanisiewski EP, Hartnell GF. 2004 Performance of growing-finishing pigs fed diets containing Roundup Ready corn (event nk603), a nontransgenic genetically similar corn, or conventional corn lines. J Anim Sci. 82:571-80.
Taylor ML, Stanisiewski EP, Riordan SG, Nemeth MA, George B, Hartnell GF 2004 Comparison of broiler performance when fed diets containing roundup ready (event RT73), nontransgenic control, or commercial canola meal. Poult Sci 83:456-461

Ttguy 07:27, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

What does this 1998 quote from from Phil Angell, Monsanto's director of corporate communications have to do with risks ? "Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the U.S. Food and Drug Administration]'s job." This is a statement of fact. The FDA regulates GM crops. Monsanto does however, have to supply data to the FDA proving the safety of the crops. It is then however, the FDA that vouches that the data is sufficent and that the crops are safe. The quote was just dropped into the article without explaination and does not bring the to the article - I deleted it. Ttguy 09:14, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] substantial equivalence

This passage is wrong

In 1994 Monsanto's attorney, Michael Taylor, working at the FDA rewrote the food laws. He created the term "substantial equivalence". What this invented term meant was that Monsanto and others could add to or alter foods in any way they chose and it would be legally regarded as equal as long as the measures of nutrients within those food were equal to unaltered ones. It is this blank check for biotech which has alarmed some consumers.

The FDA did not invent the term "substantial equivalence" as a basis for risk assesment of GM foods. As this FDA document shows the FDA used to use the term "substantial similarity" but they changed this to "substantial equivalence" to fall into line with the terminology used by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Health Organization (WHO). Ttguy 13:32, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vitamin Supplements as an alternative to GM foods

I AM RELATIVELY NEW TO THIS GM THING, AND i AM STALLING ON MY RESEARCH PAPER AS I WRITE, BUT SOMEONE MENTIONED THE VITAMIN A IN GLODEN RICE THING, AND i AM NOT FLIPPING THRU MY PAGES OF MICROSCOPICALLY PRINTED WORDFILES TO FIND THE EXACT INFO, BUT i THINK IT WAS FROM A MONBOIT ARTICLE THAT QUESTIONED, "WHY DON'T WE JUST GO GIVE THOSE IN DEVELOPING COUNRTIES WITH DEFICIENCIES IN VITAMIN (INSERT CORRECT LETTER HERE) OH YEAH, A, DUH, SUPPLEMENT SHOTS? DUH! tHOSE USING WIKI SHOULD KNOW ALL OF THE ALTERNATIVES TO GM FOODS. THANKS TO Ttguy, MONSANTO IS A CHIP ON MY SHOULDER. --Ivy Savage 00:42, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Because it is better to give people a long term, low tech, cost free solution rather than I costly high tech solution. Give them a seed. They plant it and replant it. They breed from it. They multiply it up. Problem solved forever. I dont have to keep giving people vitamin supplements. Ttguy 15:20, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A small point...

Shabang50 10:05, 23 May 2006 (UTC) hello my name is shabang50. i am a new wikipedian and am only 13. my question is why dont you add an 'in a nutshell'section to the bottom of a disputed or complex article? i am going todo it on the articles i contrbute or edit. i understand this article but it is very dry.ty ps plz edit my article User:shabang50.

[edit] "Dangerous potatoes?" section

The "Dangerous potatoes?" section in particular is organized in a way that is not beneficial to NPOV (and sadly, in a way that I have seen far too often in Wikipedia articles). It reads like:

  1. Study A shows product B is harmful (don't mention any specifics now, we'll save them for later)
  2. Criticism of study A: Reputable sources C and D question the veracity of study A for reasons E and F.
  3. Response to criticism: Despite being questioned by C and D, study A shows that product B has harmful effects X, Y, and Z.

The final point is not response to criticism, despite the fact that this section is organized as if it were. It's smoke and mirrors, nothing else. Possible responses to criticism would include:

  • Reputable source G questions the assumptions behind reasons E and F.
  • A new study H that addresses the concerns of reasons E and F has been conducted, and study H supports the conclusions of study A.

...or even (although it is far from original and has problems of its own)...

  • The impartiality of sources C and D should be questioned because they are tied in some way to product B.

I see some of this actual response in the discussion above, but none in the article. I am more than happy to reorganize the section to resemble a rational debate:

  1. Study A shows product B is harmful. In particular, it has harmful effects X, Y, and Z.
  2. Criticism of study A: Reputable sources C and D question the veracity of study A for reasons E and F.
  3. Response to criticism: If there is real criticism, mention it here. If not, don't pretend there is.

However, I am sure that some on anti-GM food side of the debate will see this as moving the article further from NPOV. I would rather see someone fix the section by adding some real response to the criticism, and with that response in place organize it a more NPOV (and easier to follow) way. CyborgTosser (Only half the battle) 20:58, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I have added specific critisims of the Pustztai potato data. I checked the links that used to be there where it was claimed that Pustztai had published further data on this. But none of them actually have any further data. Which is not suprising because Pustztai is retired and is not generating data any more. None of the links had anything addressing any of the specific critisims of the potato work. So I deleted this section. So in the spirit suggested by CyborgTosser we can wait to see if anyone can actually address the specific critisims of the Pustztai work rather than just generating heat. Ttguy 12:59, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edits by Acaryatid - June 2006, waiting for help

The recent edits by Acaryatid are very POV, full of uncited comments (eg "Some people raise concerns," "Many believe regulatory models fail," etc.) Also they seem to be directly plagiarised from a number of anti-GM websites. Could someone who has more experience with editing fix this up? Perhaps a full revert is in order.

They were also formatted in such a way that they ruined the layout of the page... I have fixed that up but the shoddy content remains. (26 May 2006)

[edit] Regarding Truefoodnow.org

Hey, I'm not sure - but should this be added? Its here: http://www.truefoodnow.org/shoppersguide/guide_printable.html Its a printable guide to all GM and Non-GM foods out there on the market. If this page is supposed to cover the topic of GM Food, should we at least reference, if not list, this information? Well, I thought I would bring it up to the people who actually deal with this topic. Dante the Bard 20:38, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Well the list was compiled in 2003. Since then a lot of things might have changed. I think that it is getting more and more difficult for the food processors to avoid GM ingredients even in europe, were they build quite elaborate bureacratic system to label every batch of gm grain from farm (shipload) to final product (bottle of oil). in the USA there is no need to label, thus no need to test, thus the list cannot be verified. So i guess it only serves to promote some particular brands on the expenses of others Xmort 00:57, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Monsanto Enforcing its patents

Under a heading Other Enforcement Cases there was a link to yet one more anti-GM web site - The Nelson Family Farm site (http://nelsonfarm.net/). This link brings nothing to the debate as it presents no independantly verifiable facts. This farmer is being sued by Monsanto but how are we to know who has done what when all we have is a web site of the defendant. If we had some court evidence then this would be of value.

Further more the secton cites http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/Monsantovsusfarmersreport.cfm stating that "thousands of America's farmers ... have been forced into dangerous and uncharted territory" This line purpetuates the myth that farmers are "forced" to use GM seeds. The are not. If they want to use GM seeds they sign a contract with the company that owns that seed and as part of the contract they promise not to save the seed. If the company finds people breaking the contract they have the right to attempt to procecute. No where on the links supplied is any evidence offered that Monsanto is procecuting farmers who have low levels of round up ready seeds as would arrise from cross polination of a conventional crop. If Monsanto is procecuting such cases then then show us the evidence.

This section is being deleted

[edit] Introduction far from NPOV

  • "Many agricultural scientists and food policy specialists view GM crops as an important element in sustainable food security [1] [2] [3] [4]."

This is POV by undue weight - whilst many academics may view GM crops as an important element, similar numbers do not. The academic postion is just as divided as popular opinion - this sentence belies this, indicating that the academic community is widely pro-GM, which is a flasehood.

The academic community is in no way equally divided. The so called workd Scientists Statement (Open Letter from Scientists to All Governments calling for a moratorium on GE technology) organised by Mae-Wan Ho has some 850 names on it - a large number of which are not scientists. http://www.i-sis.org.uk/list.shtml.
In contrast the Petition from Scientists In Support Of Agricultural Biotechnology http://www.agbioworld.org/declaration/index.html has some 3400 names and most of these are actual scientists in a field qualified to offer an opinion. Ttguy 23:59, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
That second reference - is just academics in favour of Agricultural Biotechnology - it says nothing about support for claims that it will address food security. From what research I have done, the common academic stance is that GM may help, but it is not the only answer, and for some, not the most important area to focus on (By Dyson, T: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/96/11/5929 and http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Units/gec/gecko/detsdysn.htm for an example)--Cooper-42 15:13, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
  • "Based on the proven historical economic and human welfare impacts of plant breeding research, the case for placing high human welfare value in new crop technologies such as GM crop varieties, is very well documented."

Is misleading - plant breeding is not the same as Genetic Modification. Whilst plant breeding has well documented welfare benifits, GM varieties have a very mixed set of results, none of which are as long-term as plant breeding (considering the length of time plant breeding has continued (centuries) vs Genetic Crop Modification (decades))

What are the mixed results from GM crops? And are they any more or less mixed than plant breedings results. For example wheat crops are bred to be resistant to rust disease but every 3 or 4 years or so the rust species change and overcome the plant resistance and a new wheat varitety it required. This is a mixed result in my book. The fact is that plant improvement has documented benefits. And GM is plant improvement. GM has only been around 10 years and has allready had documented sucess. So where is the problem with this statement?Ttguy 00:04, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
The largest counter-argument to this is that GM crops are more controlled than traditionally bred species, and those businesses which control them use mechanisms which are detrimental to the welfare of small-scale farmers. Whilst this has greatly improved in recent years, following rulings in India in 2001, and a greater focus on benifits for smaller scale farmers, the above quote over-emphasises the benifits to the point of almost blatant triumphalism --Cooper-42 15:13, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


  • "There is considerable evidence from Bangladesh, India, and the Philippines that food prices have gradually declined as modern conventionally bred plant varieties have been widely adopted by farmers."

Again - misleading - wide adoption of modern plant breeding varieties, not as much adoption of GM varieties.


  • "In China, economic studies show that investment in agricultural research led to higher farm output and, in turn lowered food prices that account for 30% of the reduction in urban poverty between 1992 and 1998. In India, investments on agricultural research are associated with higher crop output, reduced rural poverty and a reduction in food prices. In these studies, decline in food prices is also associated with a reduction in urban poverty [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]."

Correct - but again highly misleading. This paragraph simply states 'investment in agricultural research increases crop yields and reduces prices' - A correct statement, but no direct relevance. 'Agricultural research' could include Genetic Modification, but it could also include herbicides/insecticides, conventional plant breeding, tool and machinery, even research in organic alternatives.

At current, the intro reads as a very poorly written pro-GM argument, based on proof only by relation.

I'm not even anti-GM myself, and this stinks...--Cooper-42 14:37, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I just noticed these comments and i have already been bold and cut the intro down to something more managable and relevant to the article. At present I have dumped the politics into its own section although i think that whole section seem to be irrelevant with respect to GM food. Clearly GM food is not just about bringing down the price of food although i suppose that might happen. I would have thought a major point with respect to to science, politics and the environment would be to increase the breeding potential (new genes from a variety of sources) or to increase the dependance on one companies chemicals (monsanto/glyphosphate) or even to make agriculture more sustainable (less chemicals). David D. (Talk) 21:46, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Even more misleading statements

  • "In particular, Bt corn, which produces the the pesticide within the plant itself is widely grown, as are soybeans genetically designed to tolerate glyphosate herbicides. These consitute "input-traits" that financially benefit the producers, yet have only indirect environmental and marginal cost benefits to consumers."

Unreferenced, and heavily disputed.

Financial benifit of producers is highly disputed - whilst those who produce the GM crops have research that shows financial benifits - independent academic research has disputed this - citing the costs of pesticides and herbicides (as they are limited to proprietary products, developed by those who developed the seed, which often cost more than traditional products) and the oft-quoted 'terminator genes' which require annual purchasing of seeds. --Cooper-42 15:13, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

There is no such thing as comercial terminator gene. Some GM crops are sold on the basis that the farmer must purchase seed each year or pay a royality. This is because the farmer has agreed to licence a technology developed and owned by someone else. Why is this wrong? No one forces the farmer to aggree to this.

The genome of GM crops is about mostly non GM, A GM crop plant is a traditional variety with one new gene added. The yields and desirable characteristics of these crops are mostly attributable to

1) nature 2) centuries of breeding by farmers

A plant cannot accurately be called "technology" however much it is bred or even genetically modified. Biotechnology could not create even a simple plant from scratch. Patenting a gene in effect patents the whole plant. Bureaucracy ensures that plant breeding is in the sole hands of biotech companies, and regulations like National Seed lists do in fact force farmers to agree to grow a very limited range of crop varieties.


The terminator gene was arguably abandoned due to public and NGO outcries. Other licence costs exceed those affordable by many smaller-scale farmers.--Cooper-42 15:35, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
If this is the case then why is the Indian cotton crop made up of a huge amount of GM cotton?
And who are you to dictate how a company should price the technology that they developed and own? Ttguy 13:03, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
As to the financial benefits being unreferenced and disputed. You can not dispute the fact that GM crops have been rapidly taken up in the market place (in the USA in particular).
The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that 61 percent of all U.S. corn acres this year are planted to biotech varieties, up from 52 percent in 2005. USDA estimates that 89 percent of U.S. soybean acres are planted to biotech varieties (87 percent in 2005), and 83 percent of U.S. cotton acres (79 percent in 2005). It's estimated that well over half of U.S. canola acreage (the vast majority of which is planted in North Dakota) and papaya (Hawaii) are planted to biotech varieties. http://www.theprairiestar.com/articles/2006/08/03/ag_news/opinion/opinion11.txt
The degree of uptake is also noted in the article "The area sown in 2002 was 145 million acres (587,000 km²) and for 2003 was 167 million acres (676,000 km²). In 2004, the value was about 200 million acres (809,000 km²) [24]."
No, and I would be wrong to suggest GM crops have not had benifits for American farmers - as they have been widely proven to. But 'farmers' doesn't just mean your US cotton grower --Cooper-42 15:35, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
But you did say "Financial benifit of producers is highly disputed". And the USA is not the only place to take up GM crops in droves. Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Australia. Each of these place must have financial benefits to the farmer. Monsanto prices the technology at a price within the reach of these farmers in these countries. Otherwise they would not be growing it. So admit you are wrong. The financial beneif is NOT highly disputed. The facts on the ground are indisputable.
Economic benefits are also documented with references eg "Economic and environmental benefits of GM cotton in India to the individual farmer have been documented. [22] [23]"
If there was no financial benefit to the producer then the producers of the world would not have taken up the more-expensive-to-purchase GM crops. Farmers are smart business people. They montior the bottom line all the time. They share info. If a neighbor trys a new crop they will be asking them how it worked for them. There is no way that these GM crops can be having a negative financial impact on producers and have GM crops being taken up to such a degree.Ttguy 00:49, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
My point was not to say that there are not financial benifits, but that these benifits are far from available to all farmers. The quote above suggests that any farmer can benifit, which is currently unlikely --Cooper-42 15:35, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
In the interests of a NPOV I respectfully suggest that this story be added to the article where GM crops in India are discussed: GEAC Rejects 3 Varieties of Monsanto Bt Cotton in Andhra Pradesh http://www.mindfully.org/GE/2005/India-Rejects-Monsanto-Bt4may05.htm. Also, Bt Cotton Banned in India State of Andhra Pradesh http://www.organicconsumers.org/clothes/india051205.cfm. Newlyarrived 23:05, 4 September 2006 (UTC)Newlyarrived
So what. This same report states "GEAC.. approved four new Bt cotton hybrids for commercial cultivation in south India, including Andhra Pradesh. " So they rejected 3 GM cultivars and allowed 4. This is nothing to do with the varieties being GM or non GM. It is to do with the agronomic sutabilty of the cultivars to the Indian enviroment. It is highly disingenous to quote "3 GM cultivars rejected" as some sort of horror story. Ttguy 09:57, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
The point is that not all GM cotton provides benefits to all farmers, as Cooper-42 has already correctly pointed out. To state otherwise is clearly misleading. Newlyarrived 11:56, 6 September 2006 (UTC)Newlyarrived
Where in the article was it ever stated that "all GM cotton provides benefits to all farmers"? I smell a straw man here. Ttguy 15:14, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
No straw man, only successful examples of GM crops are presented in the article, absolutely no mention is made of the many many failures. This is not neutral. Newlyarrived 20:51, 8 September 2006 (UTC)Newlyarrived
WRT the approved GM cotton, the article quite clearly states that they are new so therefore it is as yet unclear as to whether they will provide farmers any benefits. WRT the GM cotton that has been disallowed, the article states that, "The GEAC also disallowed commercial cultivation of Mech-12 Bt in entire south India on receiving adverse reports about its performance in the last three years". In the interests of a NPOV this should be made clear. It's nothing to do with "horror stories", & everything to do with objectivity & balance. Or do the farmers etc in Andhra Pradesh not have a say?? Newlyarrived 11:56, 6 September 2006 (UTC)Newlyarrived
This is an artice on GM food not an article on 3 cultivars of GM cotton in India. Get some perspective. Who cares if 3 cultivars of GM cotton are not approved or are approved. The bottom line is GM crops are a increaseing in popularity in India and else where. So they obviously benefit some farmers.Ttguy 15:14, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
It's not just about "approval" though is it? The farmers who suffered clearly care about the economic loss GM crops caused them, but they don't seem to matter, all that's permitted is a lopsided litany of success after success, with not one failed example permitted, even though there are many. Here's something that might help you to get some perspective:
In the state of Maharashtra, 2,300 cotton farmers have committed suicide since 2000 (http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/18/news/farmers.php)
Suicide: The New Harvest of GM Cotton (http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/?q=node/view/370).
Newlyarrived 20:51, 8 September 2006 (UTC)Newlyarrived.
I agree that this article should not be discussing masses of case studies. Not to mention it barely mentions transgenic animals. David D. (Talk) 15:20, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
It doesn't have to mention masses of case studies. However, all it does mention at the moment are "successful" ones, to whit:
"Indian national average cotton yields have been boosted to close 50% above the long term average yield during this period. The publicity given to transgenic trait Bt insect resistance has encouraged the adoption of better performing hybrid cotton varieties, and the Bt trait has substantially reduced losses to insect predation. Economic and environmental benefits of GM cotton in India to the individual farmer have been documented. [15] [16]" I have clearly demonstrated how GM cotton has been economically deleterious to many Indian farmers, to the point where 3 types of GM cotton have been banned in Andhra Pradesh. Furthermore, as I've pointed out below, GM cotton was disastrously unsuccessful in Indonesia, yet absolutely no mention is made of this. Surely if this article is to be truly neutral, mention must be made of the many many documented failures of GM crops, not just the successes? It's not necessary to go case-by-case, it might be enough to point out that GM has not proved successful in many cases, with refs & links provided. It's very easy to obtain these, as there are so many. Newlyarrived 20:51, 8 September 2006 (UTC)Newlyarrived
Is cotton food? It seems like this whole example should be in a different article. Or you change the title of this article. David D. (Talk) 20:57, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Why no mention of this?: "Bt cotton planting has given us more harm than good" "In the first year of planting, during which the government aimed to assess the crop's performance before deciding on whether to allow further commercialisation, there were reported failures of Bt cotton - the crop succumbed to drought [8] and hundreds of hectares were attacked by pests [9]. The drought had led to a pest population explosion on Bt cotton, but not on other cotton varieties. As a result, instead of reducing pesticide use, farmers had to use a different mix and larger amounts of pesticides to control the pests [10]. Furthermore, the Bt cotton - engineered to be resistant to a pest that is not a major problem in Sulawesi - was susceptible to other more serious pests."... "But as the yields were poor, many farmers were caught out. Research conducted by various Indonesian institutions clearly showed that, in the year 2002, farmers planting Bt cotton had lower income compared to farmers planting non-GM cotton [12]." http://www.i-sis.org.uk/BrokenPromises.php

To say nothing of the bribes Monsanto paid to Indonesian officials, or the fine of $1.5 million Monsanto was ordered to pay to the US government over the affair!

Or this? (from the link above):

GM sweet potato project turns sour ""Monsanto's showcase project in Africa fails", runs the headline in the magazine, New Scientist, pronouncing the project to develop genetically modified (GM) sweet potatoes a flop [1]."

Virus resistant crops using GM technology does work - just ask the Hawaian papaya industry. This industry would not exist if not for virus resistant varieties produced by GM. One particular trial of one particular variety of GM sweet potato may have failed to work. But this is the nature of science. This does not mean that the whole concept is flawed. The golden rice story is a case in point on this. All the nay sayers were so quick to jump on the fact that the beta carotene levels in the golden rice were low and were saying how this meant the whole idea was bad. Well then along came an improved version with much higher levels of beta carotene. But the nay sayers still bang on about how bad golden rice is. Ttguy 15:43, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I haven't mentioned golden rice, I'm only interested in a balanced article on GM, which this patently isn't. All the examples mentioned are successful ones, & none of GM's many well-documented failings appear to be permitted. What's so scary???

As for golden rice in particular, & GM food in general, some of the main objections have already been outlined in the wikipedia article on golden rice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rice#Controversy), but apparently no such criticism is allowed in this Genetically Modified Food article. I note also that according to a number of publications, "it remains to be proven that the provitamin A is absorbed and converted into vitamin A when people eat the rice." (http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7196). Do you have any recent studies to hand?

So much in this wikipedia article is stated as fact but in reality is contested or remains unproven, and the whole article appears to me to be wholly one-sided. When I have the time I'll go over all of it, for the time being the links I've provided at the bottom of this page provide an ample & comprehensive refutation of the appallingly disingenuous slur of anti-GM organisations. Newlyarrived 20:51, 8 September 2006 (UTC)Newlyarrived

Really, no mention at all. Hardly NPOV IMHO. Newlyarrived 12:22, 6 September 2006 (UTC)Newlyarrived→

[edit] What about vaccines?

  • "Future envisaged applications of GMOs are diverse and include drugs in food, bananas that produce human vaccines against infectious diseases such as Hepatitis B"

Yes, invisaged - but widely debunked - it is not possible to control vaccine dosages (and a few mg too little can kill by not protecting the consumer, too much can also kill)

I would dispute your assertion that too little vaccine kills people. Too little vaccine fails to protect people. But it the disease that kills you.
Which is what I meant, albeit not as clearly stated--Cooper-42 15:35, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes the edible vaccine technology has some issues with getting the appropriate dose. But it has yet to be shown that these issues can not be fixed. Maybe you can produce a vaccine where overdose is in no way a problem. Then you make sure you eat enough of it to be sure you have not underdosed. The potential positive aspect of this technology - cheap and does not require refrigiration. Does not require technology to deliver etc mean it is surely worthwhile persuing. Ttguy 03:45, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Here is a recent article about a potentailly usefull vaccine for the chickens of the poor.
Mexican researchers have genetically modified maize to create an edible vaccine against Newcastle disease, a major killer of poultry in developing countries. The scientists, who published their findings online in Transgenic Research on 12 August, hope their approach can help small-scale poultry farmers protect their flocks.
Vaccines against the disease that can be given to poultry on food already exist, but are not usually available in the small quantities required by single families or villages. Octavio Guerrero-Andrade of the Center for Research and Advanced Studies (CINVESTAV) in Guanajuato and his colleagues inserted a gene from the Newcastle disease virus into maize DNA.
Chickens that ate the genetically modified (GM) maize produced antibodies against the virus. The maize provided a level of protection against infection comparable to that of commercial vaccines. "The disease is important and a big killer," says Frands Dolberg of the Network for Smallholder Poultry Development, which works with partners in developing countries to promote poultry farming as a way of improving livelihoods.
"There is a big problem in delivering the vaccine to the many millions of poor poultry keepers around the world, and the GM maize could be a possibility," he told SciDev.Net. Dolberg says that its success would depend on how accessible the GM maize was to poultry farmers.
But he points out that the poor, the landless and women - the main groups that keep poultry on a small scale in the South - generally struggle to access new technologies.

Ttguy 03:45, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

If a vaccine is formed in the cells of a plant - how can you ensure that a plant grows the required number of cells for the dosage, or even the required number of cells +/- a few hundred thousand? Once the technology of perfectly formed, shaped and weighted food is developed, it will have much more far reaching impacts than providing vaccines... Saying GM foods may provide vaccine doses without mentioning the huge barrier to development is somewhat dubious. --Cooper-42 15:35, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
  • "While their practability or efficacy in commercial production has yet to be fully tested, the next decade may see exponential increases in GM product development as researchers gain increasing access to genomic resources that are applicable to organisms beyond the scope of individual projects."

This sounds like trumpet blowing at its best - The next decade may see exponential increase of GM development, it may also see widespread rejection of GM.

  • "The majority of commercially available crops have an agronomic advantage like herbicide tolerance or insect resistance.These traits offer major benefits to the farmer and the environment."

Again, unreferenced and a highly debated statement. --Cooper-42 15:13, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Environmental benefits

There are many refernces in the article about environmental benefits. Eg greatly reduced synthetic pesticide use in the US, Australia and India - reference 26 eg "Economic and environmental benefits of GM cotton in India to the individual farmer have been documented." - ref 22 and 23. Ttguy 01:22, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Cross-polination into organic farms would certainly not have benifits for the non-GM growing farmer (organic status revoked) and there are widely held academic arguments that the reduction in biodiversity (both of the crop itself and other plants) and habitat (http://www.jic.bbsrc.ac.uk/corporate/about/publications/gm-debate/gm-impact-on-biodiversity.htm as a good summary of the issues)
Cross polination to organic crops does not cause a farmer to lose organic status. Organic certification is a process based thing. The farmer says he uses an organic process and he gets organic certification. No one is testing organic foods for cross polination from GM crops. Ttguy 13:03, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
  • "Unnecessary delays to GM crop use by farmers pose another kind of risk. Agricultural scientist and economists express concern about the harm delaying welfare and environmental improvements, for instance by pro-vitamin A enriched Golden rice which has the potential to prevent much childhood death from infectious disease"

See above about vaccination - this is another debunked theory - a child would have to eat kilos upon kilos of 'Golden Rice' to get anywhere near the RDA of Vit A. Also - no reference? --Cooper-42 15:13, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

There is a reference - a link to a whole wiki article on golden rice. If you read it you will note that there is a golden rice Ver2 that has much higher levels of pro-vitamin A and so the old "you have to eat X kg" argument just does not fly any more Ttguy 00:54, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Ok, that's news to me - it's been a couple of years since I've done any research on the issue in any depth. Even so, there is a particular academic argument which says it is unethical to rush-out new developments (of any kind, but particularly of GM crops which may affect millions) without proper safety research. --Cooper-42 15:35, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes. And the saftey research is being done and has been done. So what is the problem. Ttguy 13:03, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Zambia and food aid

Additionally, why is there no mention of GM food aid issues? Many NGOs argue that forcing GM food as food aid with no alternative is potentially harmful, for a variety of reasons. The major example being the famine in Zambia after the goverment refused GM food as aid, due to worries that it would loose the EU as a customer, given the strict importantion regulations --Cooper-42 15:35, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes maybe someone should mention Greenpeaces crime against humantiy because that is what this was. Greenpeace and their ilk killed Zambians because they gave the Zambian government an excuse to refuse food aid. Then they could give the food they did have to their political friends. The aid that was offered was US corn. The same corn Americans eat. Since GM corn is not segregated in the US there was no way the US could offer GM free corn since it does not exist. The "Zambia migh loose exports" argument was a big furphy since Zambia does not export corn to Europe. Ttguy 13:03, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
According to New Scientist, "the main reason behind Zambia's decision to reject food aid in 2002" was "doubts over the safety of genetically modified foods voiced by the British Medical Association" http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3317. In the end the famine was not nearly as severe as first feared (http://www.genet-info.org/genet/2003/Apr/msg00039.html) & was averted without the need for GM maize. By 2004 Zambia was able to export maize for the first time since 1991 http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=25585. There are those who suggest that the "crisis" was "manufactured by those looking for a new source of traction in the evolving global debate over agricultural biotechnology" http://www.biotech-info.net/zambian_statement.html. In any case a report has been published by a number of NGOs making the case that "non-GM food aid is both possible and desirable. It argues moreover that non-GM alternatives exist at national, regional and international levels" It's available here: http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/docdisplay.cfm?doc=DOC14810&resource=Default Newlyarrived 19:41, 3 September 2006 (UTC) Newlyarrived
The crux of the www.eldis.org (Friends of the Earth) article is that donor countries should be forced to donate money rather than food and that this donated money would be used to buy non-GM food locally. This sounds good except that we are talking about seriously corupt govenments. So donor countries prefer to donate food because there is a better chance of this making it to hungry people. If the USA wants to donate food then why should they have to buy GM free food for a gift to a country in crisis when their own populous do not eat this same food. In fact as I understand it there is a US law that prohibits the US from donating food that US citizens do not eat. So the proposal for the USA to source different corn from what is consumed domesitcally is probably illegal.
Whither the scurrilous attack on "Greenpeace's crimes against humantiy [sic]"? And are you suggesting that it is illegal for people outside the US to say, "No, I don't want to eat that" because of some US ruling???
No I am saying that US laws govern what US governments can and can't do. If the US law says that the US must donate the same food that its citizens eat then I guess it has to do this. If someone chooses not to accept this donation then that is their business. You seem to be forgeting that food aid is a gift. And donor recipients are not in possitions to dictate what the gift should be. And why should they be?Ttguy 15:37, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Ok I see what you mean, but I would say that food aid is not a gift when it's attached with all sorts of conditions, but that's a debate for another place. In spite of what you say, the US was able to provide non-GM food aid, as I've already made clear. Newlyarrived 20:51, 8 September 2006 (UTC)Newlyarrived
Probably not illegal after all. As it happens, the article also makes clear that non-GM maize was available from India, Mexico & indeed the US itself, so really, what's the problem? In fact, from the same article it is clear that "USAID was able to provide non-GM sorghum to Zambia after Zambia rejected GM maize." (p.14)

If anything, the US could quite possibly be violating the Food Aid Convention (http://www.mindfully.org/GE/GE4/Zambia-Food-Refusal-Crime5dec02.htm)

It's certainly the case that the "WFP and all donors should seek to guarantee and support local purchases of staple foods in recipient countries" (FoEI doc again, p.15) inasmuch as possible, as this helps to grow the local economy, as well as reducing logistic & environmental overheads. This can be done by the donor agencies/ngdos etc on the ground, circumventing corrupt governments as much as possible. Where corruption is a problem, there are mechanisms attempting to address this, certainly cash could be collected from donors by an organisation such as the WFP & disbursed appropriately. "We" are not always talking about seriously corrupt governments, but in any case, corruption should be addressed substantively, not used to surreptitiously or bullyingly introduce unwanted GM foodstuffs. Newlyarrived 13:54, 6 September 2006 (UTC)Newlyarrived


It is also not true that Zambia survived the crisis without GM food imports. They accepted GM corn imports but insisted that the corn be milled. A totally uncessary expense. There was at least one report of starving Zambians breaking into the mill and stealling the corn before it was milled - because they could not wait for the milling process. Ttguy 10:06, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
I said nothing of the sort. I said the famine in Zambia "was averted without the need for GM maize", which is true. According to that article, "Zambia managed to cope with the crisis without GM food aid. In 2003, Zambia even produced a bumper crop of non-GM maize." (p.11). I can't find one verified report of starving Zambians breaking into any mill to get at GM maize, though I note the article above highlights the importance of the Zambian supplies of (non-GM) cassava in averting the crisis. If you are privy to other sources of information, please share them.Newlyarrived 13:54, 6 September 2006 (UTC)Newlyarrived
One source I dug up about this was Eco-Imperialism: Green Power - Black Death- Paul Driessen, http://www.Eco-Imperialism.com. "The fact that Americans have been consuming this corn for years did not change Mwanawasa's position. Nor was he swayed by repeated scientific studies concluding that biotech foods are safe to eat - or by the demands of his own starving people, who on several occasions attempted to break into the warehouses." Ttguy 16:05, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Well I can't find any others, & as is well documented, the famine was averted without the need for GM foodstuffs. The US was able to provide the Zambians with non-GM food aid after all, so perhaps the whole insistence on "GM or starve" was a ploy to foist GM on reluctant recipients, as Britain's most senior scientist remarked upon. In any case Zambia is now an exporter of maize without the need for any GM, so I guess Mwanawasa might be feeling a little vindicated! Newlyarrived 20:51, 8 September 2006 (UTC)Newlyarrived

The whole portrayal of the Southern African food crisis of 2002 as an "accept GM or starve" situation has been shown to be demonstrably false, at least with respect to Zambia (never mind the moral implications). I suggest you check these docs out:

THE DECISION OF THE ZAMBIAN GOVERNMENT TO BAN GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD AID http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0000562/P474_Zambia_GM_Fig_012003.pdf

African Consumer Leaders Support Zambia http://www.i-sis.org.uk/ACLSZ.php

Also of interest was Prof David King's view at the time, he not being famous for any particular anti-GM stance:

Observer 1 Sep 2002 http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,784262,00.html

"· A rift between the UK and the US over genetically modified foods erupted last night when Blair's chief scientific adviser denounced the United States' attempts to force the technology into Africa as a 'massive human experiment'.

In a scathing attack on President Bush's administration, Professor David King also questioned the morality of the US's desire to flood genetically modified foods into African countries, where people are already facing starvation in the coming months."

Lots more here: http://ngin.tripod.com/forcefeed.htm. Newlyarrived 13:54, 6 September 2006 (UTC)Newlyarrived


  • "Some organisations are very concerned about corporate influence in developing countries. See TJ Buthelezi, Chengal Reddy, CS Prakash, Foodsecurity.net, AfricaBio, ISAAA, Nuffield and the article Trade Wars and Media Campaigns[13]"
  • "Such groups will point to the U.S. Trade Repesentative launching a WTO case against the European Union over its moratorium on GM product approvals, and point out that he was flanked not by the heads of the U.S. corporations that stood to benefit from the hoped for improvement in international trade, but by scientists who came, at least originally, from India and Kenya and by a 'small farmer' from South Africa ."
  • "They will assert that there is reason for scepticism about some of the pro-industry 'faces' being flown in from the global South in such a case. They will imply that in some cases 'small farmers' supposedly leading a 'hand-to-mouth existence' in Asia or Africa have turned out not to be subsistence farmers at all. Such rhetoric might include unsubstantiated comments like 'Some have been groomed by Monsanto and appear to be reading carefully scripted statements'."

How does the above passage constitute a NPOV? There is a lot more to the widely & easily available criticisms of GM crops in lower-income countries. Here's a short list of some research that involved a little more than "unsubstantiated comments":

Bt cotton in Andhra Pradesh: a three-year assessment http://www.ddsindia.com/www/PDF/BT_Cotton_-_A_three_year_report.pdf

Golden rice solution to vitamin A deficiency: what lies beneath http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/docdisplay.cfm?doc=DOC19020&resource=Default

Genetically modified crops and sustainable poverty alleviation in Sub Saharan Africa: an assessment of current evidence http://allafrica.com/sustainable/resources/view/00010161.pdf

GM crops: going against the grain (ActionAid report) http://www.actionaid.org.uk/_content/documents/gatg_2462004_1524.pdf#search=%22GM%20crops%3A%20going%20against%20the%20grain%22

Bt cotton: benefits for poor farmers? http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/KNOTS/PDFs/Briefing9.pdf

Genetically modified crops: a decade of failure (Friends of the Earth report) http://www.foei.org/publications/link/gmo/index.html

Bad for the poor and bad for science (Guardian article by Colin Tudge) http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1152102,00.html Newlyarrived 19:10, 3 September 2006 (UTC)Newlyarrived

[edit] Too long

i just stumbled on this page and it looks like the result of a battle ground. It seems to be very bloated. Would others agree with this? may be we can work to tighten it up a bit? David D. (Talk) 21:47, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I have made a start at trying to make this article more accessible by breaking it into subsections. This is a work in progress and I do not think the currrent structure is the best. However, i don't want to step on toes here and wish to see what kind of response these edits will receive. David D. (Talk) 23:27, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] first bit to be axed

i just removed the following section:

Based on the proven historical economic and human welfare impacts of plant breeding research, the case for placing high human welfare value in new crop technologies such as GM crop varieties, is very well documented. There is considerable evidence from Bangladesh, India, and the Philippines that food prices have gradually declined as modern conventionally bred plant varieties have been widely adopted by farmers. In China, economic studies show that investment in agricultural research led to higher farm output and, in turn lowered food prices that account for 30% of the reduction in urban poverty between 1992 and 1998. In India, investments on agricultural research are associated with higher crop output, reduced rural poverty and a reduction in food prices. In these studies, decline in food prices is also associated with a reduction in urban poverty. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7].

I'm not sure this is suitable for this article and barely touches on the GM food issues discussed in this particular article. It is well sourced and good information, is there another article it could be merged into? David D. (Talk) 14:43, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Title change

From reading the article and the discussion i have to wonder if this page name should be changed. The focus seems to be on the effectiveness of GM technology. Alternaitvely a new page titled GM crops should be started. David D. (Talk) 21:05, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Highly POV

Not knowing much about the GM food debate, I decided to read through the article to get a background. I was disappointed to find that the controversies section reads like a point-counterpoint defense of GM crops. The exposure I have had with the debate is from the side of family farmers in Scotland who are being overrun by larger agribusiness able to harness GM technology. Whereas I don't know enough about this side of the debate to vouch for either side, I can agree that it should at least be addressed, which this article fails to do. I hate to say it, but I might actually turn to news sources to find a more balanced picture - one that is not apparently skewed by advocacy groups.

What GM crops can be grown in Scotland? I don't think there are any GM crops allowed to be grown anywhere in the UK at the moment. It might be the case that Scottish farmers are having trouble competing with overseas farmers that can make use of GM tecnology but I don't think family farmers in Scotland could be over run by other local agribusinesses driven by GM technology because GM technology is not available in Scotland. But when it is - who is to say family farmers can not use it? The certainly do in the USA and Australia. Ttguy 11:34, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The neutrality of this page

well from my POV this page is pretty bias, i mean the author spent 1k of words talking about the advantages of GM food, but spend 3.5k of word on degrading it, how is this a neutral POV and how are we to accept his views of disadvantages without having a bias in our minds as well.

Hmm well I bet thats cuz there are more harms.

here is what i can think of off the top of my head

-From an objective point of view GM crops are more harmful, and this warrants the longer section. There are very little benefits and motives to use them.

  • Many GM crops Yield LESS (ie RR soy)
You say many but only offer up RR soy as an example of this. Where are the other examples? It is true that in the earliy varieties of RR soy there may have been some "yield drag". However, this only ever amounted to a few percent difference. If this difference was ever major then you would not have seen droves of US farmers growing RR soy.Ttguy 22:50, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
  • The crops that “may” yield more, cost more to produce per LB of food.
They do yield more. The evidence is clear. Yield gains for Bt. corn over traditional varieties have been 5% higher in the United States, 6% higher in Spain, and about 10% higher in Argentina and South Africa. In field trials, Bt. corn yields were up to 24% higher in Brazil, between 9 and 23% higher in China and 41% higher in the Philippines James, C. 2004. Wider adoption of biotech corn in developing world could boost yields. ISAAA (U.S./Philippines).Ttguy 22:50, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Loss of biodiversity
This claim is based soley on the fact that herbicide resistant crops control weeds better. This is then extrapolated to mean that on farms with fewer weeds there will be fewer insects / bird etc that feed on these weeds. It is highly debatable that farms be regarded as centers of biodiversity. This is a very dubious argument. What about the positive impact on biodiversity of having improved yeilds meaning less pressure to have farming encroching into wild envionronments? Ttguy 22:50, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Lack of testing, thus dangers to consumers
GM foods are tested. To say they are not is a blatent lie. See Genetically_modified_food#Safety_testing.
  • Impossible to recall their mistakes as the pollen will cross pollinate other crops
Not true. As the son of a wheat farmer I know that wheat varieties in Australia where "recalled" when it became known that they were no longer resistant to the current strain of wheat rust. Farmers we no longer allowed to plant the suceptable varieties. If there ever was some sort of hypothetical disaster then you could simply revert to another variety. Crops do not survive in the wild.
  • Law suits against farmers which no moral person would support. As it should be Monsanto’s or the farmers using the products responsibility to fence their crop in, not other farmers to fence the pollen out.
You need to read exactly what the Monsanto vs Schmeiser case was about. It was about Schmeiser having 80% RR ready seed in a crop and not paying the royality. It was not about pollen accidently arriving on Schmeiser's fields. Monsanto does not care about that and will not sue someone over that. They will sue if you use their technology - ie have a crop that is 80% their variety - and do not pay the royality. Ttguy 23:05, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Terminator seed. This hugely endangers food security as the plants still produce pollen (thus can cross pollinate).
Doh. Terminator seed = sterile crop. Doh. Cross polination in a terminator crop produces sterile seed - so no risk of the trait crossing out. Doh. PS. No terminator technology exists. Ttguy 23:05, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
  • The huge increase in pesticide use, eg, RR crops
In Brazil, Aprasoja (the Federation of Soybean Producers) reported a 50% reduction in the use of agrochemicals despite producing a record crop in 2003 ‘Record crops due to transgenics.’ 10 June 2003. Estado de São Paulo (Brazil).
In Canada, between 1995 and 2000 when the proportion of the canola (oilseed rape) crop that was biotech rose from 10% to 80%, the amount of herbicide used fell by 40%, equivalent to a 36% reduction in environmental impact (calculated by human and animal toxicity and environmental persistence). Brimner, T. Gallivan, G.J. Stephenson, G.R. 2004. Influence of herbicide-resistant canola on the environmental impact of weed management. Pest Management Science (UK).
Monsanto told investors to expect farm chemical sales to fall $1 billion, or 28%, by 2008 because biotech crops are reducing demand. ‘Monsanto says sales will soar.’ 1 Oct 2004. St Louis Post-Dispatch (U.S.). Bayer similarly blamed its third quarter loss in 2003 on worldwide weakness in its farm chemicals business and specifically on the increased acreage of biotechnology-derived crops which require less chemical pesticides. ‘Bayer Posts 3rd-Quarter Net Loss of $138M’. 12 Nov 2003. Associated Press (U.S.)
  • The loss of the organic pesticide Bt, because of the artificial selection of resistant corn borers by the superfluous use in Bt Corn
Funny you should mention this. The only insect to actually become resistant to BT in the field is the diamondback moth. It became resistant many years before the introduction of BT crops and was thus created by the use of the "organic Bt" pesticide. So far but no pest has evolved resistance to transgenic Bt crops in the field. Jeffrey L Fox, Nature Biotechnology, Sept 2003 Vol. 21 No. 9 Ttguy 23:42, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Our inability to predict the gene interaction of the effected cells
No need to predict gene interaction - you just measure it by observing how well the new crop performs in both the laboratory and in the field.
  • the inaccurate nature of the GM technique
It is as inaccurate as convential breeding in one respect - you don't know where the gene is going to go (but see point 2 below). However it is more acurate than conventional breeding in some other respects.
1. You know exactly what gene and what protein you are puting in. In conventional breeding you have no idea about what gene is going across. For example the conventionally bred potato variety Lenape was withdrawn from the market because of its toxicity. Because the conventional breeding is inacurate breeders did not know they were introducing a toxin into the potato untill AFTER it got to market. Beier RC (1990) Natural pesticides and bioactive components in foods. Rev Environ Contam Toxicol 113:47-137 Ttguy 23:42, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
2. Once the gene has been transfered you can sequence around where it landed and so you know exactly where it is in the new crops genome. So, although you can not predict where the new gene will end up durring both conventional and genetic engineering, with GE you can find out where it has ended up after you have transfered it. You can then determine if you have disrupted an existing gene or not. With conventional plant breeding you can not do this.Ttguy 23:42, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
  • The fact that the public cannot choose in N america due to not having labeling. this is due to strong lobbying by the companies
You can choose to buy organic food. And if there was a market - some one in the US would be producing GM free brands. There is nothing in the US regulations preventing someone from voluntarily labeling their products GM free.Ttguy 23:42, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Lack of traceability of harms, due to lack of labeling
Furphy. There is labeling for food additives. But can you tell me which foods you have eaten in the last year with additive number 51 for example. Epidemioligy is a powefull tool. If GM foods were causing harm an epidemioligist could find out - labeling does not enter in to it. Eg the recent spinach food poisioning in the US. No lablels but the FDA found the cause.Ttguy 23:42, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Creation of monoculture.
We have had monoculture for at least 50 years. So nothing to to with GM crops. Ttguy 23:42, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Lowering food security
? How ? Ttguy 23:42, 27 January 2007 (UTC)


And what were the benefits?

  • Monsanto gains control over the world food supply?
  • Monsanto makes money?
  • Farmers loose their rights?
  • Food costs more to produce?
  • Monsanto will give food support to Africa, but only if not milled so that it can contaminate and they give control

hmmm

[edit] rbGH

Why is a section on Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rbGH) included in this article on genetically modified food. rbGH does not involve genetic modification. The only thing rbGH shares with GMF is that both are "unnatural" and banned in Europe. 207.172.222.90 01:50, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

-From an objective point of view GM crops are more harmful, and this warrants the longer section. There are very little benefits and motives to use them. -Many GM crops Yield LESS (ie RR soy) -The crops that “may” yield more, cost more to produce per LB of food. -Loss of biodiversity -Lack of testing, thus dangers to consumers -Impossible to recall their mistakes as the pollen will cross pollinate other crops -Law suits against farmers which no moral person would support. As it should be Monsanto’s or the farmers using the products responsibility to fence their crop in, not other farmers to fence the pollen out. -Terminator seed. This hugely endangers food security as the plants still produce pollen (thus can cross pollinate). -The huge increase in pesticide use, eg, RR crops -The loss of the organic pesticide Bt, because of the artificial selection of resistant corn borers by the superfluous use in Bt Corn -Our inability to predict the gene interaction of the effected cells -the inaccurate nature of the GM technique -The fact that the public cannot choose in N america due to not having labeling. -this is due to strong lobbying by the companies -Lack of traceability of harms, due to lack of labeling -Creation of monoculture. Lowering food security


And what were the benefits? -Monsanto gains control over the world food supply? -Monsanto makes money? -Farmers loose their rights? -Food costs more to produce? -Monsanto will give food support to Africa, but only if not milled so that it can contaminate and they give control

hmmm

[edit] Toxic GM-potatoes? Citation

This section seems very inconsistent with the book "Seeds of Deception" referenced earlier in the article.

... and shown stunted growth. The lectin expressed by the genetically modified potatoes is toxic to insects and nematodes and is allegedly toxic to mammals.

This form of lectin, according to "Seeds of Deception", was proven to be not harmful to mammals. The confusion related to this might be from a press release given by another researcher who misspoke about the lectin in a interview. Could someone please clarify? At least a citation of this potentially harmful lectin would do...

RalphLeon 19:45, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Repeated Section

Herbert Boyer then founded the first company to use recombinant DNA technology, Genentech, and in 1978 the company announced that it had produced a strain of E. coli that could produce the human insulin protein.[6][7] Herbert Boyer then founded the first company to use recombinant DNA technology, Genentech, and in 1978 the company announced that it had produced a strain of E. coli that could produce the human insulin protein.[8]

Um... why is the phrase repeated? I tried to fix it myself, but couldn't find the problem in the edit thingo. must be a glitch. whoever fixes it, make sure that you get all three sources attatched to the same phrase

[edit] Separate GM controversies article

It has been noted that the controversies section of this article is not neutral - and is overly lenghty. I suggest splitting this information off into another article called Genetically Modified Food Controversies (or Criticism). See vaccine as an example where there is still a healthy section on controversies, it links to a much more lengthly article that does full justification for the issue. Like an article on abortion should not centre on its controversies, but what it is, neither should this article. Looking forward to your comments, Lethaniol 13:48, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Good, let's move the debate to Controversy over genetically modified food or GM food controversy - or some such name like that.
This new spin-off article should describe both:
  1. Why some people support GM food: helps alleviate starvation in Third World; makes money for Third World farmers.
  2. Why some people oppose GM food: it might be dangerous to humans; wealthy farmers in Europe will have competition.
I'm not sure I'm stating this in an utterly fair or neutral way, but it's a start. Other will join in to ensure neutrality, I expect. --Uncle Ed 02:34, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I think if there is already a GM food controversy all this info should be moved there. (It can be renamed/redirected at later date if necessary). If no one is in opposition then it should be done sooner rather than later. Lethaniol 15:16, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I dont know...will take a look...yet removing the entire section on controversy outside amounts to massive subversion...i havnt looked at all at the section...perhaps it should be summarized with the most important info and links to both sides of the issue...with the longer section somewhere else...to remove the section entirely amounts to handing the issue over to one side...the side that says there is no controversy over GE food and we dont need to concern ourselves over it and its a settled issue...personaly id like to see both the best pro-GM food case and the best anti-GM food case laid out explicitly in the main article...lets see...ill take a look...Benjiwolf 16:27, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why no animals?

Since there seems to be a serious attempt to get this page in order, I'll again ask why the focus on plants? There are many examples of GM animals too. David D. (Talk) 21:48, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Because there are no genetically modified animals used for food as far as I know.Ttguy 11:58, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removed references and links

I removed the following as there are way too many. I have pasted them here in case some need to be recued. David D. (Talk) 22:04, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sales of GM tomato paste in Europe?

"A variant of the FlavrSavr was used by Zeneca to produce tomato paste which was sold in Europe during the summer of 1996."

Hovever "Zeneca" link redirects to apparently has nothing to do with foods of any kind. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.254.208.149 (talk) 14:00, 17 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Removal of POV paragraph

Original text:

"The majority of commercially available crops are designed to have an agronomic advantage like herbicide tolerance or insect resistance. These traits offer major benefits to the farmer and the environment. Importantly, economic benefits of GM crops in developing countries are more significant compared to industrialised countries because agriculture in these countries is a larger part of the economy, and employs a larger fraction of the labor force, and often agriculture suffers from losses of crops to insects which are remedied in insect protected GM crops. However, in industrialised countries, the consumer benefits from GM traits are mainly indirect, and channeled through their benefits to the environment, including promotion of efficient use of available arable land and water."

"Major benifits to the farmer and the environment" How is this not POV? Ignoring the debates around biodiversity loss, possible unknown health risks, habitation loss and others. Ignoring the debates around the marketing & selling practices of GM producing companies with regards to farmers. Including the terminator gene, the cost of proprietary pesticides & herbicides and the inability to sell the produce due to restrictions in the EU.--Cooper-42 10:01, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

In fact, on re-reading the 'Benifits and risks' sections, I read a number of benifits. No risks are mentioned. 'Fears and 'possibilites', none of which are given the same depth of treatment as the supposed benifits.--Cooper-42 10:04, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I've re-named the section. It never introduced any risks, just the attitudes of various international parties, and so was named incorrectly. I have, for the time being, referred to the GM food controversy article (which itself needs attention by someone more versed in the academics of it all, and just reads like a populist rant on something which has real scientific, political and economic academic concerns)--Cooper-42 10:14, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Getting Involved

Hey there,

After leaving my comments on the talk page sections above, this article really has not improved that much – and still needs considerable attention. Therefore I am just notifying people that I will spend some time trying to bring this very important article up to scratch (and if I have time the linked controversy article too). I will disclose beforehand my particular POV, that I am generally pro-GM (note also though that I am pro-local food and soil rotation but generally anti-organic, am pro-medicine (I am a pharmacist) and anti-alternative medicine, and though pro-GM I am anti-terminator gene – a real mixed bag), but I have no COI, i.e. I do not work for any GM biotech etc… Also I have some experience in dealing with difficult “controversy” based issues over at Waldorf Education and related articles.

Having said that, the following is how I think this article needs to be improved, and unless major objections, I will act upon.

  1. Generally clean – i.e. correct wikilinking, formatting, complete references and prose.
  2. This article is about GM food, and although the controversies surrounding it are critically important, they should not be as dominant as they are. I agree with Benjiwolf that the controversy section should be small, sharp and to the point, arguing the case on both sides, and then linking to the controversy article. Basically this page should be documenting what the controversial issues are (i.e. secondary sources) and the controversy page should describe them (i.e. using mostly primary research and some secondary sources). Note if I remove any content from the article, I will either replace it into the controversy article, or create a sub page of my user page where the info can be kept unaltered.
  3. Unreferenced info. All info/facts in this article must be suitably referenced – for example this anon edit [21] is pretty useless without the references. Where I can easily find the references I will add them, if not I will add {{fact}} tag (note there are going to be a lot of these – this article has loads of unsupported statements in), and if no reference is forthcoming I will remove the content after reasonable period of time.
  4. Lead paragraph is poorly written and not following WP:LEAD will work upon.
  5. Reformat sections – a bit messy at the moment, so I suggest the following sections – History/Development, Rationale (i.e. rationale behind use and the proposed benefits – counter claims that these benefits are over hyped can be put in this section too), Controversies (including safety (human/enviro), trade, IP each in separate subsections), Current Products, Polictical/Global Reception.

So here are my ideas. Please note that I do not have the best prose or spelling, so if I make mistakes in this respect please feel free to copyedit my work. I will be adding a To-do list at the top of this talk page – basically a list of things that really need to be done – be free to add to it. Also as talk page discussion expands, I will set up an achieve for past discussions, that have either been resolved or so old that are irrelevant to the current article.

Furthermore not all my edits will be perfect – this article is certainly a work in progress wrt content and format/style, so if I/we try something that does not work – e.g. a particular format and we need to alter it back to a previous format then we can do, but please allow for plenty of flexibility if you do not agree 100% with all the edits, and can we also have plenty of discussion on this talk page if there is any problems or even suggestions.

Look forward to starting. Cheers Lethaniol 11:46, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

This is great idea. Especially the idea that "All info/facts in this article must be suitably referenced". Unfortunately what you are going to find is that it is not possible to find references for some of the pet claims of the anti-GM movement. So you are going to have to exclude these. Then someone that has just been to NGIN or ISIS or some other anti-GM web site is going to come along and either complain about NPOV or is going to totally destroy your good work by droping back in all the unverifiable claims that the anti-GM movement like to make. What is going to be the strategy for dealing with this? Can we have the article blocked to anonymous editors or something like that while it is being worked on?Ttguy 21:31, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
I was just looking at the Semi-protection policy. And it could be useful to get this page semi-protected. Semi-protection stops anonymous editors and editors of less than 4 days registration. However, I note that is policy NOT to use semi-protection pre-emptively before vandalism. So I guess we will have to wait for repeated vandalism before we get semi-protection in place.Ttguy 22:25, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
Semi-protection will be an option if there is a massive jump in vandalism once the article starts to improve. We will have to see how it goes. Cheers Lethaniol 12:12, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Orphaned paragraph in Future developments

In The future developments section after the text Safety testing of these products will also at the same time be necessary to ensure that the perceived benefits will indeed outweigh the perceived and hidden costs of development. there used to be the following paragraph but it did not follow from the previous paragraph.

This has led to the United States claiming that bans on the sale of GM products violate free trade agreements and has resulted in trade wars over the requirements for GM food products.[8] Many scientific institutions, even in the European Union and Japan, however, do not judge the risk of unintended changes in composition of GM foods to exceed the risk currently exhibited by conventional crops.[9]

I am deleting this pargraph but if we can figure out where it belongs we can put it back.

[edit] Revert of Greenpeace France link

Please see the info that I have just reverted - [22]. I have done this because I have checked out the Greenpeace France article [23], and tried to find the link to the article. Greenpeace references this page only [24] and when I try to search for Monsanto or MON863 no resulting are found. Also I have used the ISI WOS [25] to try a more extensive search - but it is the case that this article does not exist yet.

Hence if the research has not yet been published it can not be added to Wikipedia yet. Cheers Lethaniol 17:29, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

This would probably be the issue already discussed on Genetically_modified_food_controversies#Dangerous_corn. So unless there is any new news on this I think we already have this covered. Ttguy 09:57, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
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